Brazil 0 Mexico 0: Lethargic hosts in nervy stalemate

Brazil’s route to winning their home World Cup suddenly doesn’t look so straightforward any more.

Not only were the hosts and favourites held to a goalless draw by Mexico, they put in a performance that must deeply worry the millions of Brazilians who have been assuming that their heroes already have one hand on the trophy.

Big Phil Scolari’s team were laboured and uninspiring. Mexico thoroughly deserved their point, even though their keeper, Guillermo Ochoa had to earn it with a series of saves with all parts of his body!

Victory would have all but ensured Brazil’s passage to the knock-out stages. Now they’ll have to sweat it out in the final match against Cameroon.

They will still probably go through, but there’s no air of invincibility about them now.

If Brazil’s football had been as committed as their anthem singing, they wouldn’t have a problem.

Take Neymar and Thiago Silva out of the equation and this side looked no better than their hard-working opponents. Fred would have been grateful for the offside flag as he hit the side-netting instead of the target from five yards out in the 11th minute.

There were dangerous flurries from the Mexicans in the first half, notably when Julio Cesar had to tip over Herrera’s drive.

Ochoa did superbly well to claw away Neymar’s 26th minute header from Dani Alves’ cross.

It was the sort of save that had those with a long memory recalling Gordon Banks’ stop from Pele in Mexico. It was good, but not that good!

Vazquez came close when he flashed a drive wide but Ochoa again had to be alert two minutes from the break to get a leg in the way of Paulinho’s close-range effort.

Scolari had had enough of his team’s lack of purpose and replaced Ramires with Bernard at the break.

The immediate impact was a driving run which Rodriguez managed to get a head to before Neymar could make contact.

But the substitution gave Brazil no more control of the game. In fact, the more energetic Mexicans began to pose a very tangible threat.

Guardado’s shot was deflected over by Tiago Silva and Vazquez then Herrera were not far off target with a pair of rasping drives.

Jo came on for the totally ineffective Fred, Brazil seemed to flick the urgency switch and straight away Ochoa saved with his hip at his near post from Neymar.

At that moment it seemed we’d see a different Brazil, even though they’d left themselves only 20 minutes to rectify a desperately disappointing 70.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Thiago Silva had to scythe down Mexico substitute Javier Hernandez to prevent the Manchester United man turning on goal. It was just a yellow card for the skipper, with the ref judging him not to have denied a clear scoring opportunity.

There was yet another reaction save from Ochoa from Thiago Silva’s header five minutes from time to keep Mexico level.

Then, with a touch of poetic justice after their soft spot-kick against Croatia, Brazil were denied a late penalty when Marcelo went down under the slightest of challenges when he could have kept his feet and been through on goal.

Mexico weren’t done, either, and Cesar had to save well from Jimenez in stoppage time.