Brazil won Group A of the 2014 World Cup to safely reach the second round in their home country but a tricky route to the final awaits for Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side.
Prior to the tournament, the round of 16 match was expected to be tough for the hosts with many predicting Brazil to meet either Spain or the Netherlands immediately after qualifying from their group.
Spain looked poor as defending champions and bowed out after two games. Netherlands head coach Louis van Gaal didn’t want to face Brazil so soon. The Dutch avoided them, leaving Chile to face Brazil.
Chile got the job done in beating Australia 3-1 in their opening game before impressing in a 2-0 victory over Spain. They didn’t allow too many clear-cut opportunities. Netherlands were 2-0 winners in the Group B showdown after both sides were 0-0 at half-time.
Should Brazil get pass Chile as the bookmakers expect then they will face either Colombia or Uruguay in the second round. The Colombians are the bookmakers favourites to win that one.
A Brazil-Colombia quarter-final sounds like a mouth-water prospect with both teams favouring attack over defence and scoring a combined 16 goals in the group stage. Brazil don’t really know how to defence and Colombia don’t leave huge amounts of players back to defender.
Should Brazil make it past the quarter-final then they can meet Germany, France, Nigeria or Algeria in the semi-finals. Germany are the shortest odds of these four nations to reach the final, whilst France have seen their odds drop significantly since the start of the tournament.
That would leave a tough challenge for Brazil to reach the final with the two aforementioned European sides looking good to this point. The last two World Cups have each been contested by two European finalists. The last time a European nation didn’t reach the final of a World Cup was in 1950, when the competition was previously hosted in Brazil.
If Brazil manage to overcome their first three knock-out rounds and reach the final, the likely finalists from the other half of the draw would be Argentina, Netherlands or Belgium.
A Brazil-Argentina final is some prospect but the Netherlands should not be written off after making an impressive start to the tournament. Argentina have to go through Switzerland and then potentially Belgium just to reach the final four which is no easy feat for them either.
Can Brazil take the pressure of a nation and win the 2014 World Cup?