Just as Dunga and the Brazilians welcome back a couple of its star performers, Chile loses a trio off its roster for Monday's FIFA World Cup Round of 16 contest. Brazil heads into the elimination round of the 2010 World Cup with perhaps the easiest path to the finals of all the top contending teams.
Brazil avoids Argentina, Germany, Spain and even Mexico on their side of the Round of 16 betting bracket, needing to only face Chile on Monday and perhaps the Dutch to advance deep, with Uruguay or Ghana waiting down the road.
DungaTheGreek.com has Brazil -175 soccer betting favorites over Chile who is a +525 underdog. The total is two and a regulation time draw is +275.
The Samba Stars are also available at +108 on the -1 goal line.
Brazil comes out of the Group Stages after a 0-0 draw with Portugal, but advanced without using a trio of star players. Players that the Brazilians will have back for this game versus Brazil. Kaka and Elano return in the midfield for Brazil, as well as striker Robinho.
Brazil still looked dominant in all of its games even without key players and playing off tempo. A bad Brazilian team is still one of the best on the planet.
Chile unfortunately will be subtracting players from its elimination round team, with three players suspended for this match. Midfielder Marco Estrada is joined by defensemen Gary Medel and Waldo Ponce on the double yellow card list and not at the 2:30 p.m. ET kick off that will be broadcast on ESPN.
These South American soccer teams are quite familiar with one another, playing twice in World Cup qualifying, two games that Brazil dominated. Look for much of the same in this game, with the Brazilians taking their true form for maybe the first time in this tournament.
Midfielder Kaka started slow for Brazil, but with his time off and the Brazilian team confidence at an all-time high, we will see him begin to perform up to his potential here.
Chile is coming off of a 2-1 loss to Spain in the Group Stage, but its defense throughout the first round was stout and they shut out both Honduras and Switzerland. The Chileans will need many things to go right in order to keep the scoring down from Brazil.
Chiles only hope will be to score early against Brazil and then try to hang on, but I think their early strategy will play right into the Brazilians' hands.
Look for a Brazilian attack right out of the gate to end all hopes for tournament dark horse Chile.
Prediction: Brazil 3 Chile 0
Poster Comment:
The team from Chile already has their flight home scheduled immediately following the game, or so they said on the news a while ago.