LONDON: England manager Gareth Southgate was full of praise for his young and inexperienced team against the best of Brazil, in which the star Neymar gave a dazzling performance even in a game lacking in goals. Southgate, having taken charge this season, is building an England side fit to impress in the World Cup next year. With Brazil’s heritage, their history and the state of English football, a draw seemed fine for the home side.
Southgate said: “It was young players digging in. In terms of heart, resilience and spirit, it’s up there with anything that I have been involved with. We showed resilience and guts and some really outstanding defending against a top, top team. I am incredibly proud of them. We just couldn’t get hold of the ball. We couldn’t move it as well as we did the other night (against Germany).”
Brazil, Fifa’s top-ranked nation, as expected were outstanding. What any team playing Brazil has to get used to is that this current side will take the quality of a game up to the limits of what their opponents are comfortable with and even far beyond that. They dominated almost the entire first half and in long spells in the second half.
Neymar, the world’s most expensive player, was the star attraction, as the frenzied reaction and high-pitched squeals every time he touched the ball underlined. His control and movement with it at times was quite mesmerising. The 25-year-old played with a freedom at Wembley and is clearly happy in the attacking triumvirate with Gabriel Jesus and Philippe Coutinho.
To have kept Brazil and particularly Neymar at bay was an achievement for England’s defenders with John Stone the pick of the bunch. It was England’s first goalless draw with Brazil in 40 years. Southgate said: “I cannot speak highly enough of Joe Gomez he played against one of the best players in the world. It not a win bit it’s a great performance.”
He added: “We know we need to be better with the ball than we were tonight. I thought we were a bit anxious with the ball. There were a couple of late chances to score that just went begging.
“When you dig in like we did you get half-chances at the end for Dominic Solanki and Tammy Abraham that could have won the game. So, it’s a base to work from.”
Brazil saw a lot of the ball and enjoyed perhaps 70 per cent of the possession. They missed chances when Fernandinho’s low shot hit the base of a post after 76 minutes, Joe Hart made an excellent save at the feet of Dani Alves and with five minutes to go Paulinho eluded Ashley Young and forced another save from Hart.
Man of the match Gomez said: “It was a great experience to play at this level against the players that Brazil have. We are happy with the clean sheet. It was a great team effort.” And goalkeeper Hart had no doubt of the value of the draw, adding: “I totally thought we were playing the best team in the world, I thought Brazil were brilliant. But our defensive backline was phenomenal. We had a game plan and they made that really hard for us. We had to adapt on the pitch.”
The match was a spectacle for a crowd of near 90,000 which saw Brazil’s attacking display against a solid defensive wall of England as Brazil’s manager Tite said: “One team was pushing forward, the other team was more defensive.”
From Andy Jalil at Wembley
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
