6 reasons why Brazil is going to be just fine at the World Cup

It’s been a disappointing start for the big favorites at the 2018 World Cup. Spain and Argentina were held to draws, Germany lost, and France was extremely unconvincing in a narrow win over an Australia team it was expected to crush. Brazil joined their ranks during Sunday’s late game, drawing 1-1 against Switzerland, but they’re the favorite you should be the least worried about.

Brazil is going to be fine. And not in a “this is fine” way. They’re actually fine. Here are six reasons why.

There’s no more brutal route to World Cup qualification than CONMEBOL’s tournament. It starts months before anyone else’s and features every team in South America playing each other twice — 18 matches, every team home and away. Brazil finished on top of the table, losing just once, away to Chile on the first match day. They went 17 games unbeaten after that and finished 10 points ahead of second place.

That’s more indicative of their ability than one game against Switzerland.

So here’s what Switzerland did to Neymar.

Referee Cesar Arturo Ramos called 19 fouls on Switzerland — with 10 of them alone committed on Neymar! — but he let a lot go too. He didn’t give Granit Xhaka a yellow card for a nasty early foul, and Blerim Džemaili got away with committing five fouls without getting booked. Brazil won’t have to deal with that again.

Neymar also looked rusty, which is understandable. He missed the last couple months of the season for Paris Saint-Germain and only had a couple of warm-up friendlies to get ready. He hasn’t played a game at anything approaching World Cup speed and intensity since March. Expect Neymar to get better as the tournament goes on.

Brazil had just two of their 17 shots on target at one point, and finished with five on target from 21. When a team is failing to hit the target that often from such a high volume of shots, it’s probably just bad luck. Some really good efforts dribbled just wide. Bad shooting luck games just happen sometimes.

You’re telling me I’m supposed to be concerned about a team scoring goals when they have this guy? He’s not even a top three attacking player on this team. Good lord.

Neither Serbia, nor Costa Rica looked good in their opening match. Switzerland, meanwhile, was probably underrated coming into this tournament — they only lost at home to Portugal in 12 qualifying matches. Switzerland finished with a plus-17 goal differential. They’re a very solid team. This might be the toughest game Brazil plays before the quarterfinal.

If Brazil manager Tite thinks there’s actually something wrong with his lineup, he has a lot of very good options to change it. Roberto Firmino is a better athlete than most of the starters from this game who can play up top or wide, Douglas Costa can give them a better dribbling option on the wing, Fernandinho can be a more dynamic defensive midfielder than Casemiro, and Renato Augusto is a more intelligent, all-around midfielder than today’s starter Paulinho. Just one switch could make a big difference, and he can make four if he needs to.