BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, (Reuters) – World Cup favourites Brazil have rediscovered their swagger and boast a superb past record against Chile but go into tomorrow’s do-or-die game knowing their rivals have enough attacking prowess to wreck the hosts’ party.
Seeking a sixth World Cup on home soil, Luiz Felipe Scolari’s men hit their stride in a 4-1 demolition of Cameroon that won them Group A and showed striker Neymar at his very best with two great goals and crowd-pleasing trickery on the ball.
Now facing Chile in the first game of the tournament’s knockout round, Brazil will be encouraged by recent history. They easily knocked out Chile at the same stage in the last two World Cups “La Roja” (The Red) featured in, 1998 and 2010.
Brazil have in fact won nine of their last 10 meetings.
Yet this fast and attack-minded Chile side could be the best version yet, claiming one illustrious scalp already when they beat reigning champions Spain 2-0 en route to their own qualification behind the Netherlands in Group B.
The Brazil of their opening two group games, a win but an unconvincing one against Croatia and a draw against Mexico, have not struck fear into the Chileans.
“Brazil has often been Chile’s nemesis but football changes, new generations come and new players appear,” said midfielder Arturo Vidal, known to fans as “King Arthur”, who returns from a knee injury that kept him out of the match against the Dutch.
“We’ve beaten the world champions, so we can beat Brazil.”a
