PHILADELPHIA: Brazil forward Matheus Cunha rewarded manager Carlo Ancelotti’s backing with his first two goals at a World Cup as the five-time champions cruised to a 3-0 victory over Haiti on Friday (Jun 19) to eliminate their opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinicius Junior also scored in the first half and was the creator for both of Cunha’s strikes before an apparent leg injury forced winger Raphinha off in the 40th minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, it was a much-improved effort from the Selecao’s 1-1 draw against Morocco to open their tournament and a result that puts Brazil on four points and above the Atlas Lions at the top of Group C on goal difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haiti became the first team eliminated from the World Cup after\u00a0Morocco’s 1-0 win over Scotland, who have three points, earlier on Friday. Haiti are bottom with no points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, they clearly enjoyed their second appearance at the finals and first since 1974 and, despite a line-up that suggested a low block, showed admirable endeavour in front of a vocal red-and-blue-clad minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Centre-back Ricardo Ade came closest to scoring for the Caribbean side after half-time when his flashing, near-post header from a corner forced Alisson into a reaction save.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cunha was one of two changes by Ancelotti, slotted in for Igor Thiago at centre-forward. With the Manchester United man involved, the Brazilian attack looked much more connected than six days prior, albeit against a lesser opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, they punished the enthusiastic Haitians after a bright first 15 minutes from the underdogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Brazil’s first goal after 23 minutes, Vinicius cut inside from the left and snapped a shot that keeper Johny Placide could only parry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Centre-back Hannes Delcroix attempted to clear the danger, but Cunha pressured and ultimately forced the ball across the line for his second goal in a competitive international fixture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That connection again surfaced in the 36th after a counterattack stemming from a Haitian turnover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinicius slipped a ball into the path of Cunha’s well-timed diagonal run and, while he appeared to stumble, the forward still struck a strong finish into the top corner as Placide leaned in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not clear what led to Raphihna dropping to his haunches moments after the second goal, on a night where he had one apparent early goal ruled offside and another glaring miss after a move which also brought a raised flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinicius’ strike came in stoppage time before the break when he ran onto Lucas Paqueta’s ball over the top and finished low past the charging Placide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PHILADELPHIA: Brazil forward Matheus Cunha rewarded manager Carlo Ancelotti’s backing with his first two goals at a World Cup as the five-time champions cruised to a 3-0 victory over Haiti on Friday (Jun 19) to eliminate their opponents. Vinicius Junior also scored in the first half and was the creator for both of Cunha’s strikes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417936,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417935\/revisions\/417936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}