Match Review & Highlights: Brazil 3-1 Ivory Coast

June 20th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Brazil beat the team many consider the most talented in Africa 3-1, with all thee goals bring impressive for various reasons. But while Brazil were deadly in patches, they weren’t exactly dominant, and the team got dragged into petty retaliations that resulted in Kaka getting sent off.

Highlights below:

Luis Fabiano, Robinho and Kaka combined to produce Brazil’s first goal after 25 minutes, with lots of short sharp passing Luis Fabiano’s merciless near post finish. Luis Fabiano’s second came just after halftime, and at first glance was even more impressive, bringing a high ball down, flicking it over one, then two, then three defenders before volleying past Boubacar Barry. But on second sight Luis Fabiano definitely handled the ball at least once, and had the cheek to lie to the ref about it afterwards.

Brazil’s third came in the 62nd, with Kaka getting to the byline and pulling back for Elano to score, and Ivory Coast’s consolation came in the 79th when the disappointing (though still broken armed) Didier Drogba scored with his head. But somewhere in the second half it all went wrong, and the game descended into a series of fouls and retaliations. It was as if the players all reverted to their petty 13 year old selves. The highlight of all the pushing and shoving resulted in a second yellow and red card for Kaka, after Kader Keita, shall we say, overreacted to making contact with Brazil’s #10:

Not only did Keita over-react, he got the location wrong too. The chest is not the same place as the face. And as the BBC pundits point out above, the referee didn’t even see the actual contact, just Keita rolling around on the floor.

Dunga was understandably angry, but Brazil are through to the last 16 with six points, so Kaka’s suspension for the game against Portugal isn’t quite the blow it could have been. Ivory Coast on the other hand, looked like they couldn’t quite hang with the big boys of Brazil and – assuming Portugal beats North Korea tomorrow – will find themselves relying on other results when trying to reach the Second Round later this week.

- More at the Brazil blog and the Ivory Coast blog.