sport news ROB DRAPER: Brazil struggled to fill Neymar void - they will need him back to ... trends now
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The Samba drums beat their constant rhythmic encouragement, the canary yellow shirts were everywhere, illuminating the stadium and the original Ronaldo was sat in the stands, cheered whenever the big screen caught a glimpse of him.
In short, it had everything a Brazil World Cup match ought to: that fevered sense of anticipation, the feeling that you’re at one of the great events in sport and the sheer joy being alive.
What it didn’t have was Neymar. Instead, we had Fred. For fifty seven minutes at least. And, without wishing to jump on an unkind bandwagon, that seemed a somewhat low-key replacement for Brazil’s most-iconic player since Ronaldinho, who was injured for this game.
Casemiro scored a late thunderbolt as Brazil beat Switzerland 1-0 at Stadium 974 on Monday
And it turns out that, against a doughty Swiss side in no mood to play the role of Harlem Globetrotters’ token opposition, Brazil are in fact a weaker side without their best player.
They did get there in the end and what a joy it was when Casmeiro who, seeing a bouncing ball in the box, connected so sweetly with it he might have been Tiger Woods driving at his peak or Sachin Tendulkar swatting the ball away to the boundary.
From the moment boot connected with ball, Switzerland goalkeeper Yann Sommer knew the game was up. The net rippled before he had barely moved. The huddle of Brazilians
