Brazil’s two goal hero Neymar claimed that he didn’t feel any pressure ahead of his side’s final Group A game against Cameroon on Monday. Brazil could have been eliminated from the competition in the unlikely event of them losing.
“I’ve always aid that there is no pressure when you are making a dream come true,” said the Barcelona striker. “This is something that I sought after since I was a kid. Today I’m playing in matches I always dreamt about.”
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The fans in Brasilia chanted his name louder than any other players and he didn’t let them down, but Neymar was keen to deflect attention away from himself.
“I want to help my fellow players, and doing whatever it takes on the pitch to score,” said the striker who now leads the top goalscorers’ chart with four.
“The main thing is that the team, as a whole, was our best match, by the way we played on the pitch. We managed to attack as we wanted and everyone deserves to be complimented because we played to deserve the score. We are on the right track and are progressing.”
Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari was impressed at how his side recovered from Cameroon’s first half equaliser.
“We had a small problem in the first half when Oscar joined the attack, Oscar and Hulk should have been (dropping back to) look for the ball,” he said, adding the problems were fixed at halftime.
Despite criticisms of his defence and the ease in which Daniel Alves was beaten for the Cameroon goal, the Brazil coach added: “I don’t have one little drop of fear about the defence, they are spectacular, naturally they can be beaten like any defences.”
Cameroon’s German Volker manager Finke cut a far unhappier figure.
“We have come to the World Cup and not won a match,” he said. “It’s serious. We did badly. But we have also had good experiences. We need to focus during 90 minutes. It’s not the first time we don’t have focus during the whole 90 minutes, and we need to find the reason for this. Three times we had control of the ball and then we conceded.”
Finke was at least impressed with how his team started.
“The first half was fine,” he said. “We were doing well. We had the two goals against us, but also Brazil deserves this victory. It’s clear that they created more chances. We need to take our time and analyse all the reasons (why we failed).”
“We cannot say that this has been a better match. There were certain things that were quite positive, but for the World Cup it’s not enough. So we need to look at reality.”
Cameroon fly home, Brazil will play Chile in an eagerly awaited knock-out match.
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