The Brazilian national team was eliminated from the 2024 Copa America after losing on penalties to Uruguay in the quarter-finals. The Dorival Junior coach also assessed that the defeat was achieved because his strategy did not work as he wanted.
In the match which took place at Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, United States, on Sunday (7/7/2024), Brazil played a goalless draw against Uruguay for 90 minutes of normal time. They were unable to score a single goal despite being superior in numbers since the 74th minute after Nahitan Nandez was given a red card by the referee for his hard tackle on Rodrygo.
In fact, Alisson Becker et al lost in terms of the number of opportunities where Uruguay kicked 12 times, while they only kicked seven times. In the end, they lost in the penalty shootout with a score of 4-2 after Eder Militao and Douglas Luiz failed to execute their kicks properly.
Dorival Junior also admitted that the Selecao – the nickname for the Brazilian national team – did not play at the level they should have in this match. Even so, according to him, there were many positive things to be learned from the failure at the 2024 Copa America, even though his team was only able to achieve one win with three draws from four matches during the tournament.
“We didn’t play the game at a good level technically. “But I also don’t rule out other things, there is dedication, fighting spirit, the team never stops progressing,” said Dorival Junior as quoted by Globo, Sunday (7/7/2024).
“After this result, we have always been a brave team, we have more positives than negatives in this process,” he added.
Furthermore, Dorival Junior assessed that his strategy also did not work well in this match. In fact, after La Celeste – the nickname of the Uruguayan national team – lost one player, the team was confused about what to do.
“The opposing team knows how to score goals, we opened up, we had two players feinting on the side, we tried with movement, infiltration, exchange of passes, in terms of creation, it was not a good day. “Both defenses won over the attack,” explained the tactician from the country of Samba.
“It was a match full of duels and “exchanges”, several moments of technical clarity from both teams. Since we were superior in numbers, we were complicated, we didn’t have the clarity to enter calmly, with balance on the sides of the pitch. “It didn’t happen the way we wanted,” he concluded.
This minor result saw Brazil eliminated consecutively in the quarter-finals in the last two major tournaments they participated in. They previously experienced failure in the last eight when they lost on penalties to Croatia in the 2022 World Cup.
Meanwhile, Uruguay has advanced to the semifinals of the 2024 Copa America. Next, Darwin Nunez and his colleagues will meet Colombia on Thursday (11/7/2024) at the Bank of America Stadium.
