For the second time in two Copa America outing the boos rang out from the Brazilian faithful as they watched their side toil in a match they were expected to win.
Despite not having superstar Neymar, the Selecao are at home for the 2019 Copa and the expectations are nothing short of claiming the crown as they’ve done every time the tournament has been held on their home turf.
But nobody ever said it would be easy. In their first outing Brazil struggled to break down Bolivia for 45 minutes, bringing about the boos from the home crowd, before turning up the pressure in the second half and running to a comfortable win.
Tuesday’s match against Venezuela started out in a similar fashion, but the turnaround never came, with VAR ruling out two goals for the home side as they were held to a 0-0 draw. Once again a chorus of negative sentiment rang out around the stadium, leaving Brazilian star Thiago Silva to defend his side’s showing following the draw.
“In my opinion [the boos] were undeserved, mostly because Venezuela had very few chances, we worked well defensively, the team was well structured,” he told SporTV. “We could hardly push the pace because they were very defensive.
“Sometimes we rushed the last pass, tried to work it quickly and failed. We lost some of the confidence as the match went on.
“But I believe that we were good tonight, as a whole. But that’s it, when you don’t score it seems that everything went all wrong.”
Fellow defender Filipe Luis was also sad to hear the home support turn on his side, but feels like he and his team-mates know how to deal with the pressure.
“Everyone was booed at some point, had good games, bad games, there are no rookies here,” he said. “Everyone knows how to handle the pressure.
“If the fans don’t help and prefer to boo the team, or even chanting ‘ole’ to the opponent, then only Brazil will lose.
“We’ll try to respond to this by playing, working hard and giving our best. It wasn’t the match we expected, but no one here spared any effort.”
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