BRAZIL SUFFER FIRST NIGHT NERVES IN SWISS STALEMATE
ROSTOV-ON-DON: Coach Tite blamed first night nerves after Brazil’s bid for a sixth World Cup got off to a rocky start as Switzerland withstood an early onslaught to snatch a 1-1 draw in Rostov-on-don on Sunday.
On the day when holders Germany were shocked 1-0 by Mexico, Brazil’s tag as pretournament favourites looked justified in a dominant first-half capped by Philippe Coutinho’s wonder strike to open the scoring.
However, Brazil paid for their failure to kill the game off when Steven Zuber powered home an equaliser from Xherdan Shaqiri’s corner five minutes after the break.
The pressure will now be on Brazil to kickstart their campaign when they face Costa Rica on Friday.
The stalemate unimpressed.
“I’m not happy with this result. Our finishing wasn’t good. We had 20 chances, but too many left Tite shots were off target. We should have made their keeper work harder than that.”
“I put it down to stress, first match nerves, that’s true for me too,” the Brazil boss said.
He added: “Up to their goal, I was satisfied. We were moving well. Then they raised their game, and it took us 10 minutes to regain our rhythm. But once again, our finishing wasn’t good.”
His Swiss counterpart Vladimir Petkovic had an understandably more upbeat assessment of the game.
“I’m proud of my lads. I hope this will mean we are taken seriously,” he said.
Coutinho had been handed a central role behind Neymar, on his first competitive game for four months, Gabriel Jesus and Willian in a line-up filled with attacking intent.
The five-time world champions went about their task of erasing the memories of a 7-1 thrashing by Germany on home soil four years ago purposefully early on.
Paulinho passed up a glorious chance when his scuffed effort from close range was turned behind by Yann Sommer.
It seemed a matter of time before Brazil’s pressure paid dividends and the opener arrived in stunning style on 20 minutes.
Barcelona’s record signing picked up a loose ball on the edge of the area and in trademark fashion bent the ball crashing in off Sommer’s far post.
Neymar looked bright despite his lack of match practice as he teased the Swiss defence provoking yellow cards for Stephan Lichtsteiner, Fabian Schar and Valon Behrami.