Serbia 0-2 Brazil: World Cup highlights and recap

Brazil beat Serbia 2-0 in the World Cup on Wednesday, June 27. Here are all the highlights from the match.

Brazil beat Serbia 2-0 at the Spartak Stadium in Moscow on Wednesday to secure their passage to the round of 16 as Group F winners. For the third match running, they weren’t fully convincing, but after Germany’s shock exit earlier in the day, will be more than happy to have topped their group.

The selecao’s side started well, creating two decent chances in the opening five minutes, but fell off after that, and were further hampered when Marcelo picked up an injury and had to be replaced by Filipe Luis, a fine defender, but nowhere near the attacking threat his teammate is.

The breakthrough eventually came in the 35th minute through Paulinho, who poked past Vladimir Stojkovic after a nice ball from Philippe Coutinho in midfield. Paulinho has proven a dangerous goalscoring threat for both club and country this season, and proved once again what a danger he can cause with his runs from deep.

Serbia had their best spell of the match coming out of halftime, pegging Brazil into their own half for the first time all game. Allison had a nervy moment in the Brazil goal on the hour mark, parrying a cross to the feet of Aleksandar Mitrovic, who couldn’t finish. Shortly after, Mitrovic saw a decent header easily saved.

With Serbia pushing for an equalizer, Brazil extended their lead. Thiago Silva got the goal, heading in Neymar’s corner after some shoving in front of him had left several players, including two Serbian defenders on the floor. The Serbia’s protested, but the goal stood, without any VAR intervention.

Next: The best player on every team at the World Cup

Highlights

Brazil will play Mexico in the round of 16 on July 3.