I thought of writing about the match between Brazil and Serbia. I ended up taking a while, as I had other more important texts to review and write. The match, moreover, like the vast majority of matches in this current edition of the World Cup, did not give me much interest to write anything.

Right from the start, I found the Brazilian formation to be very offensive — and even too offensive. I really believed that Tite would leave the team more balanced, but that was not the case. However, even with Brazil being quite offensive, the Serbian team did not pose any danger to the Brazilian defensive system.

The game that Serbia presented was primitive: just looking for the aerial game, without any more detailed combination and individual actions with a lot of Dušan Tadić basis. Speaking of Dušan Tadić, I was impressed to have seen him play again — not for the football on display, but for the memories. The last time I saw a performance from Tadić was in the exceptional 2018/19 season. What a superb player he was, highly technical and elegant with a tactical touch to his play. He was the false 9 of that Ajax that could have played in the final against Liverpool.

Serbian players are quite tall, but they don't have great technique or tactical sense. The main play is ball in the air and wait for someone to put the ball in the back of the net. That's it. It went far from working against Brazil. It's primitive football. As much as the Brazilian defensive system had an excellent performance, I could not see any danger in Serbia's actions – they did not manage to shoot on goal, in fact.

As much as the Seleção had a very poor first half, the beginning of the second half of the match already showed a different performance from Brazil. It was only a matter of time before Brazil scored the first goal and, consequently, the others to come — they scored only one later, I believed they would score even more. It was a good debut for the team, especially with a second half well above.

SOME PLAYERS

I expected more from Neymar. From what the Brazilian star can actually play, he was below his football. About his injury, I've seen that type of injury several times throughout history. If Brazil reaches more advanced knockout stages, Neymar will be far from 100%.

I want to write a column about Neymar — and I will when I get rid of some other texts. The column will cover some topics about what I think about these injuries and Neymar's football in general.

Vinícius Junior was what I expected: incisive, going after the opponent with his individual actions. He also knew how to create chances for his teammates. Vinícius had a great performance. Very different from Raphinha, who played poorly and missed clear chances to score, even being selfish on some occasions.

I confess that, even before the match, I preferred to see Neymar as centre-forward — false 9 — with Vinícius on the left and Raphinha on the right. Richarlison barely touched the ball in the first half of the match, but improved a lot in the second half. He is there to do his job: to score goals – and he did it very well. What an exceptional second goal Richarlison scored, the most beautiful goal of the World Cup so far in my opinion.