Brazil coach Carlos Amadeu spoke of a tough road ahead soon after the win over DPR Korea sealed a place in the knockout round in the ongoing FIFA U-17 World Cup. On the face of it, Honduras — Brazil’s pre-quarterfinal opponent on Wednesday — will not give Amadeu a sleepless night but he is not prepared to take his opponent lightly.
“I watched Honduras play in the CONCACAF qualifiers. They scored a lot of goals. In this tournament they scored five against New Caledonia and scored against strong teams like France and Japan. Palacios and Mejia are talented strikers. We cannot relax against them,” said Amadeu at the pre-match press conference.
Maybe Amadeu was paying too much respect to Honduras, which sneaked into the knockouts as one of the four best third-placed teams. Facing Brazil will be a tough proposition for the Central American side, but its coach Jose Valladares said his team is not prepared to go down without a fight.
“Brazil is a good team and favourite to win. They have a good defence but we will be playing for a win. We will try to make it as difficult as possible for our opponent,” he said.
No team has struck a chord with the Kochi crowd as Brazil has.
The support from the stands notwithstanding, familiarity with the conditions and Brazil’s overall brilliance may well prove too much for Honduras.
Its massive losses — to Japan (1-6) and France (1-5) — has exposed the frailties in the side. Apart from the huge win over New Caledonia, Honduras’ performance against the bigwigs have been nothing to shout about. The individual brilliance of Palacios and Mejia (three goals each) has been the highpoint of Honduras’ campaign so far.
Having conceded 11 goals till now, Honduras will have to shore up its leaky defence if it is to pose any serious challenge to Brazil.
Shared responsibility
Apart from a brief while when it was down by a goal against Spain, Brazil has hardly been stretched in this tournament. In the absence of Vinicus Junior, Paulinho and Lincoln have shared the responsibility of scoring goals.
The midfield under Alan and Marcos Antonio has been efficient. Alan, who was rested in the match against Niger, will start against Honduras.
Goalkeeper Gabriel Brazoa’s stability under the bar has covered up for any weakness in the defence. But as Amadeu insists, the Brazilian offence starts from the defence, where overlapping defenders have added teeth to attacks.
