Brazil 2-1 Japan: FIFA World Cup Round of 32 Match Report

Brazil 2-1 Japan, and a comeback. Japan led at half-time, and Brazil scored twice after it to survive a Round of 32 tie that had looked, for forty-five minutes, like producing the upset of the tournament.

Trailing at the break is not a position Brazil had been in at any point in the group stage. They had conceded one goal in three matches on their way to topping Group C, and a Japan side that had scored seven in the group found a way through inside the opening period. What followed was the response of a team that had not needed to produce one until then.

Japan's tournament ends having led a knockout tie against Brazil and lost it. That is a harsh reading of a campaign in which they beat Tunisia 4-0 and took a point off the Netherlands, but it is also the reality of a knockout format that offers no second leg.

Brazil topped Group C with seven points from a 1-1 draw against Morocco, a 3-0 win over Haiti and a 3-0 win against Scotland. Seven scored, one conceded — the most controlled group campaign of any South American side, and one built on a defence that had barely been tested.

Japan finished second in Group F on five points behind the Netherlands. They opened with a 2-2 draw against the Dutch, then produced a 4-0 win over Tunisia, before drawing 1-1 with Sweden in the final round. Seven goals scored and three conceded — an attacking return that matched Brazil's and a defensive one that did not.

The 2-2 with the Netherlands is the result that best explains the first half here. Japan had already shown they could go toe-to-toe with a tournament heavyweight and score twice doing it. Taking the lead against Brazil was not out of character; holding it for another forty-five minutes was the part they could not manage.

It sent Brazil into a Round of 16 against Norway, which they lost 1-2 after another goalless first half. Read together, the two matches describe a Brazil side that struggled to impose itself early and ran out of the resilience that saved them here.

Their tournament therefore ends in the last sixteen, beaten by a Norway team they would have been expected to handle — and the warning signs were already visible in this tie, in a first half that ended with them behind to a side ranked well below them.

For Japan it closes a campaign that deserved better than a Round of 32 exit. Seven group goals, a point against the eventual quarter-finalists from the Netherlands, and a lead against Brazil in a knockout match. Very few teams outside the last eight can point to a tournament with that much in it.