Yes, this is the first time Brazil loses a match to South American rival Venezuela. In the Gillete Stadium in Boston, on a game that lacked creativity, passion and good sense, Brazil watched a very much alive and skillful Venezuela dominate the entire 90 minutes. Brazil’s coach, Dunga, started the friendly with an uncommon formation: 4-3-3. The three men on top: Robinho (good), Pato (good) and Adriano (???). The formula proved to be a disaster and gave Brazil a gap in the midfield, which was supposed to be orchestrated by Anderson and Elano. Bad choices, bad results.

And so quick was the magic trio broken, with only 6 minutes into the match. Venezuela scored with Maldonado on a nice counter attack, proving that 3 men up top gave Brazil weakness instead of strength. The men in the back, Henrique and Luisao, were clearly not on the same note.

Later on, on a bad pass by Henrique, Vargas scored a beautiful goal for Venezuela.

Time to weak up Brazil. But apparently the alarm did not go off. Selecao was still asleep.

It was only on the second half that Dunga decided to change things a bit. But instead of taking out the slow and ineffective Adriano, he took away Pato from the pitch. The young AC Milan forward was creating good chances and was definitely a better choice.

With now 2 forwards and a more alive midfield, with Diego and Josue, Brazil started to gain some color. But it was not enough. With a lot of wrong passes and plays that deviated from Brazil’s passing style could have never given way to a Brazilian goal.

After the match, the players seemed not to care that much. After all, this was just a friendly and the real matches were still to come (Paraguay and Argentina for the World Cup 2010 Qualifiers). True at some point. The 50,000 people who went to the stadium, to see these players in action, were surely not having the same thoughts.

Coach Dunga made a good point on the press conference following the match: “now is the time to experiment and try all the players capped. It is not worth bringing these guys back from vacation if we are not going to give them a chance.”

Agreed. Let’s just hope Dunga won’t want to try new formation styles during the next 2 matches.