With the 3-0 victory against Haiti, their first in the World Cup, Brazil reached the top of Group C.
As a bonus, the team led by Carlo Ancelotti regained first place in the World Cup’s historic artillery, with 241 goals against Germany’s 239.
However, not everything is good news for the team, who lost Raphinha 40 minutes into the first half.
The team continues to demonstrate difficulties in association between the attackers. Against Haiti, the main articulations came from the team’s defensive midfield, close to the central circle.
In the second half, the heat map shows the team retreating, with the ball hovering around goalkeeper Alisson’s area — which did not happen in the initial stage.
The map that shows where the ball circulated on the field shows a darker blue line in the Brazilian defensive midfield, with the participation mainly of Gabriel Magalhães, Casemiro and Danilo.
The association between strikers Raphinha, Vinicius Junior and Matheus Cunha is clear or non-existent.
The map does not show, for example, the moves in which Raphinha was offside, receiving good passes from Bruno Guimarães — but being a little ahead.
The heat map corroborates the idea, with the darker red spot a little behind the central circle, trying to attract the Haitian marking to make longer associations to pierce the Caribbean defense.
The area was also occupied by Lucas Paquetá and Casemiro, who retreated to give options to Gabriel Magalhães and Marquinhos.
It was from there that two of Brazil’s three goals came. After Lucas Paquetá stole the ball in midfield, he passed it to Vinicius Junior.
He advanced through the center lane and passed to Matheus Cunha to increase the score to 2-0, finishing in the left corner of goalkeeper Placide.
Still in the center lane, Paquetá launched Vinicius Junior, who advanced freely to the left and shot to score the third goal for the Brazilian team.
The match also saw Raphinha more active on the right wing while he was on the field — something that didn’t happen in the first half against Morocco.
LATER IN THE 2ND HALF
In the second half, the map already shows a greater presence of the Brazilian team in the defensive area.
In contrast to the initial stage, when there were six shots, Brazil only shot twice after the break, even increasing the presence of attackers to the detriment of midfielders on the field, such as Endrick and Gabriel Martinelli.
The Caribbean team started to circle the Brazilian area more, with Derrick Etienne being used on the left wing of the attack.
The heat map also shows that the yellow spots in the Haitian defense field have decreased.
After spending the first half without any shots, there were seven shots from Haiti against Alisson’s goal in the final stage.
