World Cup 2018: Brazil vs Costa Rica: 5 Best, Worst & Average Players
Brazil left it late to get the work done against Costa Rica, as Oscar Ramirez’s team adopted a thoroughly defensive tactic. It became extremely apparent that they were content with keeping the Brazilians away from the score sheet and eventually managed to keep them at bay for the entire duration of 90 minutes.
A late flurry of attacking moves from Brazil resulted in two goals within six minutes as an action-packed injury-time ensured an entertaining contest for the fans too. Earlier, the Costa Ricans were diligent and tenacious in their approach, often blocking and breaking down Brazil’s attacking moves with some good positioning and pressing in and around the penalty box.
Here, we discuss five players who endured a different kind of games, from all the players who took the field today.
5. Worst: Willian
On paper, the Brazilians have an extremely potent attacking lineup with Willian undertaking the responsibility on the right wing. The Chelsea player is an industrious forward with a knack for using the width of the pitch to deliver some testing crosses into the box.
Moreover, he is an integral part of Tite’s counter-attacking system as Willian’s quick feet and dribbling skills give him an added advantage in such counter-attacking scenarios.
Today, he was shambolic, disappointingly. Often, Willian failed to receive passes and the first line of defence itself blocked his crosses into the box. His inability to stretch the play meant that Brazil’s attack became excessively narrow, and Willian was somewhat lethargic while receiving the passes too.
His touch was too heavy, and though he pressed the opponent on the right flank too, there was a significantly lesser creative contribution from his side.
On one instance, Willian, who was stationed perfectly fine and unmarked in the opposition half, messed up while collecting Neymar’s beautiful curled ball towards him.
This was in the first half and had Willian received the ball well, the outcome of the game could have been really different as Willian actually could have had free run towards Navas. Unsurprisingly, Willian was substituted for a much more accurate Douglas Costa at halftime.