On Saturday afternoon, thousands of Brazil fans, clad in highlighter yellow jerseys, made the trek to MetLife Stadium to watch their team play Morocco in its first game of this World Cup. They sang on the train in from Manhattan and waved flags and chanted throughout the day.
But after 90 minutes of tense, back-and-forth play that ended in a 1-1 tie, those fans were less than thrilled. “That was a terrible performance,” one said as he left the stadium. “Terrible!”
Soon, Brazil manager Carlo Ancelotti was sitting on a stage, taking questions from another tough crowd: the Brazilian media. They peppered him with questions about his starting lineup, his substitution patterns, every tactical decision one could imagine.
“You don’t win a World Cup based on your first match,” Ancelotti said through a FIFA interpreter.
