Arthur Elias reflects on win over Costa Rica | OneFootball

On Friday night (27), the Brazilian National Team defeated Costa Rica 5-2 in their first game of the year. After the friendly match held at the Alejandro Morera Soto Stadium in Alajuela, Costa Rica, coach Arthur Elias analyzed Brazil's performance.

"We played well in the first half and the first five minutes of the second half as well, when we had three clear chances. After that, we had almost half an hour where we weren't consistent, we didn't play as we had planned," he stated.

Regarding the match, the coach broke down the game plan and revealed his main idea for securing the victory.

Arthur Elias and Kerolin celebrate Brazil's first goal in the friendly against Costa RicaCredits: Lívia Villas Boas/Staff Images/CBF

"The idea was to adopt a different distribution system to have an advantage over Costa Rica's tactical system. Previously, we played with three defenders, along with two wing-backs and three forwards," he said.

"This time we switched: we faced Costa Rica's back four with five forwards, but with Kerolin and Bia often playing the role of number 10, as midfielders. So, it worked very well for much of the game," he added.

The Brazilian National Team will have two more challenges next week, against Venezuela and Mexico. Arthur highlighted the similarity of this sequence of matches to a group stage and its importance for preparation for the 2027 World Cup, which will be held in Brazil.

Brazilian National Team before the friendly against Costa RicaCredits: Lívia Villas Boas/Staff Images/CBF

Starting this year, FIFA has changed the schedule for national team meetings. Instead of six meetings a year, teams will gather five times. Thus, the first two FIFA Dates of the year will be longer, allowing for up to three matches.

The Brazilian National Team will resume training on Sunday (1) at the Mexican Federation Training Center in Toluca, where they will face Venezuela on Wednesday (4).

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.