Fascinated by the creative and beautiful Brazilian football, he moved to Sao Paulo.30Over a year. Hiroaki Sawada, who has watched many games and interviewed players and coaches, tells us about the current state of the Kingdom.
The 23rd installment (total 201st installment) of the monthly WEB series from footballista magazine is about the Selecao’s reaction after the pairing was decided and their opponents, who were tasked with winning the World Cup for the sixth time since the Japan-Korea tournament in 2002.
‘Quite a difficult group’: Ancelotti
For next year’s North and Central America World Cup, Brazil will be in Group C along with Morocco, Scotland and Haiti.
They will play against Morocco in New Jersey on June 13th at 6pm, against Haiti in Philadelphia at 9pm on the 19th, and against Scotland in Miami at 6pm on the 24th. Since the games are in the evening or at night, the heat doesn’t seem to have any effect. The distance between the match locations is also not that far.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti, who attended the draw, commented on this combination as follows:
“Morocco are our toughest opponent. They play systematically both offensively and defensively, and their individual players have high abilities. In the last tournament, they held off Croatia and Belgium in the group stage, and from the round of 16 onwards, they defeated strong teams such as Spain and Portugal to make it to the top four, and they have improved even more since then.”
“Scotland has great physical ability and plays hard. They defeated strong opponents such as Denmark in the European qualifiers.”
“Many of Haiti’s national team players (who are participating for the second time in 52 years) play for clubs in Europe and North America.It is no coincidence that they made it through to the North, Central America, and Caribbean qualifiers.”
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Hiroaki Sawada
He watched the entire 1986 World Cup in Mexico and his outlook on life changed. Fascinated by Brazilian football, he moved to Sao Paulo at the end of 1986, and has continued to watch Brazilian and South American football ever since. His publications include “The Tragedy of Maracanã” (Shinchosha) and “Passion of Brazilian Soccer” (Heibonsha Shinsho).
