Brazil 1 – 0 Estonia: As Bad as It Can Get

Bruno Romani | Aug 12, 2009 | Comments 0

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While Brazilian clubs struggle to pocket any money, CBF made US$ 2 million to take the Brazilian squad to Estonia, as a “celebration for the 100th anniversary of the first football match in the country”. And if That was to be a celebration, it felt more boring than Monday morning work meeting.

The pitch was small, the stadium was smaller and the audience even smaller. The 9300 seats were not all taken. Brazil started lazy and full of arrogance, as Robinho was the who better impersonated that. Kleberson, Luis Fabiano, Andre Santos and Maicon started shy. Kaka was out of shape. The small pitch and the desire to put on a honorable performance turned the match into a big blob of physical display.

When the ball presented itself in front of Luis Fabiano to score the only goal of the match, the result was unfair because Brazil did nothing and Estonia at least shot 4 times on goal. The most important moment of the first-half was the injury of Kleberson, who had his shoulder put out of place for the third time in his career. This, according to Brazil’s Dr. Runco, is very likely to taken him to the surgery table. Elano replaced him

In the second-half, the only thing that really changed was that Brazil started to give back some of the dirty tackles it has been getting since the beginning of the match. Violence + arrogance + sleepy attitude = match very annoying to watch.

Things started to get a bit more interesting when Dunga brought in the reserves. Julio Baptista replaced Kaka, Diego Tardelli replaced Robinho, Daniel Alves replaced Maicon, Nilmar replaced Luis Fabiano and Miranda replaced Lucio.

From there, the offensive trio created a few chances, with Diego Tardelli being the best of them. Nothing, however, that fully satisfied the fans.

Around the 35th mark, Estonia started to feel confident that they could get a historical result, and started to pressure Brazil. But once more, any technique was run over by physical power, and the match really ended how it started: with dirty tackles and no action.

If it was clear from the beginning that this match was going to be good for nothing (maybe only for keeping the series of victories in a row the national team has), after the 90 minutes it became clear that not even the more negative predictions did not foresee how bad it was going to be. Tonight, Atletico-MG and Palmeiras will be the match of the day for those who truly love Brazilian football.