“Amazing powers of recovery.”
Brazil are through to the last-16 of the World Cup. The five-time world champions beat Serbia 2-0 on Wednesday evening to set-up a knockout tie against Mexico on Monday, and put in their best performance of the tournament so far.
Paulinho opened the scoring, finishing off a brilliant Philippe Coutinho pass in the first-half. Then, after the break, Thiago Silva scored a header from a corner.
Neymar set-up Silva’s goal and was at the centre of Brazil’s display yet again. He had seven shots, went on nine dribbles and had more touches than any other player on the pitch (113).
He also tumbled about seven-times after he was fouled in the first-half.
Neymar was lucky to survive such an attack. The Paris Saint-Germain forward bravely got back to his feet and managed to play on. On RTE, Richie Sadlier expressed the feelings of the entire football world when discussing Neymar’s tumbles, which certainly weren’t an act of simulation.
As we all know, Neymar would never and has never dived during a game of football.
Sadlier said on RTE:
“Amazing powers of recovery. To recover from the anguish that he was in and that amount of pain he was clearly in to tumble that many times and get back up and smile and get on with it.”
Phillipe Coutinho, a teammate of the brave and selfless Neymar, also caught the eye of the RTE pundits.
The RTE panel believe that Philippe Coutinho is key to their success in the knock-out stages.#RTEsoccer pic.twitter.com/INHFQwkMnW
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) June 27, 2018
