Ahead of the game against surprise package Honduras at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium, the Selecao coach told a news conference that Neymar had faced a lot of pressure due to his emergence as a superstar at an early age, but he had shown the intelligence required to learn from his hard experiences. When we were in Atlanta we knew the team we had and we had a talented bunch of players. For everything that has happened there, it’s a special place for us.
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The nearest they have come to realising their dream was in 1984 in Los Angeles, 1988 in Seoul and 2012 in London when they reached the final. Honduras even in the game with Korea does not remember anything remarkable – the team controlled the ball 35% of playing time and caused a total of 4 shots on target the opponent’s goal.
“Honduras is mentally prepared for the match”.
Brazil didn’t play at the Maracana at the World Cup in 2014 but it won the Confederations Cup at the venue the year before, in a final against Spain. If it beats Honduras, it will be back at the stadium for Saturday’s final.
Brazil and Honduras are scheduled to meet on August 18 CST time. Brazil has three silver medals and two bronze. This is because they only got one win in their bracket Their other two games, both resulted in a draw in their 2016 Rio Olympics Men’s football campaign.
It bears repeating that this is also the team that eliminated the United States in Olympic qualifying last fall.
“We stuck together as a team, our system worked very well against Portugal and I think we deserved to win”, said Arsenal forward Gnabry afterwards. “I’m looking for that player to mark him”, he said.
Neymar had been struggling for form going into the all-South American clash in Sao Paulo.
In the other semi-final, Germany, who beat Portugal 4-0 earlier on Saturday; will face Nigeria on Wednesday after the West African side beat Denmark 2-0. Germany has the competition’s best attack with 19 goals.
In the final men’s quarterfinal match of the day, Brazil defeated Colombia 2-0 to advance to the semifinals.
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Team level is very uneven and the favorite in this pair are uniquely Brazilian, who yearn for the home Olympics to win his first in the history of the “gold”.
