End of qualifiers story: Brazil 0 – 0 Venezuela

It wasn’t the prettiest match in football history, nor was it supposed to be. Brazil had already qualified and Venezuela had almost no chances of qualifying (unless they beat Brazil 6-0 and Argentina beat Uruguay 9-0!), so it was what it was. Dunga did some experimenting and some things are definitely clear: Robinho should never come back, neither should Filipe Luiz, who plays anything but good football. Nilmar is becoming a good choice up front – fact. Maicon, Luis Fabiano and Kaká are absolute stars on this team and will make the difference in 2010. Brazil is lucky to have Julio Cesar.

The game started a bit boring with Venezuela closed on the back and trying to counter attack. The hype only came on the 20th minute with Maldonado almost scoring an Olympic goal for Venezuela. After that, Nilmar gave Kaká a good pass which resulted in a free kick very close to the goal. Luis Fabiano took it and showed Brazil has no man, whatsoever, who can properly take a free kick. Maicon created some good chances with Kaká and Luis Fabiano but nothing that made Venezuela’s net shake.

The second half brought new energy into the game and Brazil almost scored with Nilmar. After that it was Luis Fabiano’s turn to almost score: he hit the post on a header and Maicon got the rebound but Venezuela managed to take the ball out. Miranda got a red card on the 55th minute but Brazil was still a better squad even with 10 men on the pitch.

Luis Fabiano, our goal man, had plenty of opportunities to score, but if he didn’t miss it, Vega was always there to prevent the ball from going in. Dunga took Ramires and Filipe Luiz out to put Elano and Alex. Nothing much changed. With few minutes left in the game, Kaká had a brilliant moment and almost scored a beautiful goal. Did not happen.

Brazil finished first with 34 points. It’s all good.

Oh, one last thing: I still think Dunga should consider bringing Ronaldo (the original – now a bit fat – one) to the bench as a surprise element (I promise this is NOT a biased opinion of a Corinthians fan).

Related posts:

1. Brazil 0 – Venezuela 2. Wake up call?
2. Job well done. Brazil 2 – 1 Paraguay.
3. Dunga calls the squad for the next WC qualifiers matches. A little better?
4. Easy: Brazil 3 – 0 US
5. World Cup Qualifiers: Time to fire Dunga. Now please!