Brazil struggles but defeats South Africa
After watching impassively for 82 minutes while a fired-up South Africa played his own team to a soccer standstill on Thursday, Brazil Coach Dunga finally made a move.
Yanking left-sided defender Andre Santos out of the game, which was scoreless, Dunga sent right-sided defender Daniel Alves on in Santos’ place.
It seemed a strange substitution, a defender coming on when a goal was sorely needed, especially with a proven goal scorer such as Alexandre Pato sitting on the Brazilian bench, but it turned out to be an inspired one.
Within six minutes of taking the field, Alves curled a superb free kick into the top right corner of the South African net to give Brazil a 1-0 semifinal victory in the Confederations Cup in Johannesburg.
South Africa fans in the crowd of 48,049 slumped in sad disbelief. Their dream had lasted 88 minutes, then, just like that, had died.
The win set up an intriguing final on Sunday at the same Ellis Park Stadium between Brazil and the United States, which upset Spain, 2-0, in the other semifinal Wednesday.
Brazil has a 13-1 record against the U.S. and has outscored the Americans, 26-8, including a 3-0 victory in the opening round of this tournament.
Dunga, who was captain of Brazil’s team that won the 1994 World Cup before turning to coaching, said bringing Alves on in place of Santos was a logical move. “The game was very close,” he said at the postgame news conference, “so I put on a very quick player, who is strong on set pieces.”
Brazil got that set piece opportunity when South Africa’s captain, Aaron Mokoena, fouled Ramires on the edge of the penalty area. Alves immediately stepped up to take the kick.
“It was one of the few opportunities we were going to have,” Dunga said. “The foul was right in front of the goal area, so it was perfect for us.”
The Barcelona right back curled his shot around the defensive wall and just beyond the fingertips of diving goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune.
South Africa matched Brazil stride for stride and shot for shot in its best performance of the eight-nation tournament. The closest it came to scoring was in the second half, when Teko Modise blasted a shot toward the Brazilian net, with the ball taking a wicked deflection off defender Luisao.
Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar was moving to his right to cover the initial trajectory and had to fling himself back across the net to make a superb one-handed save, turning the ball wide of the post.
Cesar had earlier been forced into solid saves on shots by Siphiwe Tshabalala and Steven Pienaar.
South Africa will play Spain in Sunday’s third-place match in Rustenburg (5:55 a.m., ESPN2 and Univision). The 11:25 a.m. final has been switched from ESPN2 to ESPN and will also be shown on Univision.
Jones reported from Los Angeles.
--
