The First Real Test

Last Thursday Brazil finally played well, people finally started using positive adjectives to describe the team, and attitudes turned, in but two hours, from "I hope we don't embarrass ourselves too badly" to "We should be able to win this easily." The truth is probably somewhere in between, but Brazilians aren't fans of moderation, at least not when the subject is the World Cup.

Robinho's activity had everything to do with the drastic change in style on display, but he won't play today. He didn't even travel with the team. We can hope that Fred plays in his place, and we can be disappointed. I'm sure we'll see Adriano's return. There's more of a chance the Juninho will keep his place in the starting lineup, but at this point it's hard to have a lot of confidence in Parreira.

There's no point in translating Tostão's latest. That's a shame -- it's a funny column, but there's not information in it. Tostão throws up his hands and says, who knows? He loved Brazil's performance against Japan, but wonders if it would have been just as good with Adriano, Zé Roberto, and company. And maybe it would have been. He dedicates his column to a discussion of the lack of certainty in soccer and in life.

Any game against Brazil is the World Cup final for the opposing team. The players know that, every time they take the field. Today will be no different. Ghana is a good team, but they might give Ronaldinho Gaúcho and Kaká too much space. They might destroy Brazil. With Robinho on the field it would have been guaranteed to be a very entertaining game. Without him, it should still be better than watching Switzerland against Ukraine, but that won't satisfy many people in Brazil.