Brazil struggled to survive their match against Chile during the kickoff games for the knockout rounds held at Estádio Mineirão, Belo Horizonte. They needed to win the penalty round in order to win the match. There score were tied at 1-1 right after the full time ended thus the need for the penalty in order to determine who gets to proceed to the quarter finals.
During the penalty, the cores were tied at 1(2)-1(2) before Neymar made his kick. The star player was able to successfully land the ball to the net making the lead for Brazil at 1(3)-1(2). Now it was Gonzalo Jara of Chile's turn to make his penalty kick. The ball from Jara's kick hit the ball and bounced away from the goal securing Brazil's place in the quarterfinals. The Brazilain players dropped to the ground, some crying some happy with the fact that they were so close in ending their world cup dream.
Team Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari acknowledged the reality that his team needs a whole lot of improvement in order to face a tougher team in the quarterfinals.
He said "We have to look at why we didn't get better. Each match from now on will be more and more difficult. We have a good national team, we are not better or worse than any of the other teams that are still playing. We need to try to make fewer mistakes in the next matches. We may not be this lucky again."
Brazil had a tough night fighting off Chile from securing goals into the game. According to Scolari "If you don't take advantage of the opportunities that you have, you may end up paying a high price, and we almost had to pay that price with two minutes left," He continued "If you don't score when you can, you end up being at risk."
Brazil is off to face Colombia for their quarterfinals game this coming Saturday. Colombia has won their game over Uruguay on a 2-0 match. The latter will be lead by their back to back goal star James Rodriguez. On the other hand, Brazil will be playing without defensive midfielder Luiz Gustavo as he received his second yellow card during their match against Chile.
