Brazil vs Mexico (Copa America, Group B, 6/27/07)

With both teams not having all their starters, the game started off a bit slow. However, the Mexican National Squad took an early chance to score when Nery Castillo lobbed a pass to himself over the last Brazilian defender and scored Mexico’s first goal after 23 minutes. 6 minutes later, Ramon Morales bent a free kick over the Brazil defense for the second goal.
After the 2 goals, the Mexican squad went into a defensive mode for the rest of the game. Only attacking a few times with few players. Brazil, without much inspiration, relied on Robinho mostly for their counter attacks. But when the Brazilian players got the ball, they held on to it for 10 seconds but no one was making a run to open up space. Then they tried to dribble past 3 players, which is hardly even possible at this level of play. The game was pretty boring most of the time. little-bursts from Robinho and Anderson kept Brazil barely alive. Castillo showed that he has skill, but lacks discipline. He also missed a wide open goal in the last minute of the game.
In tournaments like these, Brazil has the reputation of starting slow, and catching up later on. This result happened 4 years ago, when Mexico beat Brazil 1-0, but later watched Brazil go to the finals and beat Argentina in a penalty shootout. So don’t overlook Brazil just yet, they still have 2 more games left to show themselves.

FINAL SCORE: Mexico 2 (Morales, Castillo) - 0 Brazil

LINE-UPS
Brazil: Doni, Juan, Maicon (Daniel Alves, 78), Gilberto, Alex, Gilberto Silva, Mineiro, Elano (Anderson, 46), Diego (Afonso, 46), Robinho, Vagner Love.
Mexico: Guillermo Ochoa, Jonny Magallon, Rafael Marquez, Israel Castro (Jose Castro, 64), Fauto Pinto, Gerardo Torrado, Fernando Arce, Jaime Correa, Ramon Morales (Jaime Lozano, 78), Nery Castillo, Juan Carlos Cacho (Omar Bravo, 68)