Brazil look unified and have strength in depth to cope without Neymar | Juninho Pernambucano

The World Cup favourites showed enough in their win against Serbia to suggest they can perform well against Switzerland even without their star player

Brazil had a decent start to their 2022 World Cup. The first game of the tournament is always a little bit more difficult. An early wrong turn, a miscontrolled ball or a badly placed pass can dictate the story of the game. A team that wants to go on to win the tournament need to realise that and manage the raw emotions and the overall energy of those first minutes. Brazil did that in their 2-0 win against Serbia. But let’s be careful. The three points does not guarantee anything, not even progress to the knockout stage. The players need to know that humility and respect is key here and you can never have too much of that.

Now comes a game against another European competitor, Switzerland. Football is exciting because we will never be able to fully understand it, but a win on Monday and early qualification for the second round is what the coach, Tite, is after. Then he could use the third game to rotate the squad somewhat and try a few different tactical things for the battles ahead.