Brazil 5-0 Bolivia: The rain of goals came early

Neymar and his teammates easily won the ninth round of the South American World Cup qualifiers, thereby maintaining second place after Uruguay.

Goals: Neymar 10', Coutinho 26', Filipe Luis 39', Gabriel Jesus 44', Firmino 75'

Against the third-bottom team, Brazil quickly created an overwhelming game and scored a series of goals. In the first half alone, goalkeeper Carlos Lampe had to pick the ball out of the net four times from easy shots by Neymar, Coutinho, Filipe Luis and Gabriel Jesus. After the break, Roberto Firmino sealed a "five-star" victory for Brazil with an accurate header.

With their fifth win of the qualifying round, Brazil are firmly on the path to qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The five-time champions currently have 18 points after nine matches, ranking second, just one point behind Uruguay.

Neymar continues to advance on his way to breaking Pele's scoring record. Photo: Reuters

Like the previous two matches, Neymar only scored one goal but played a decisive role in the victory. With skillful dribbling from the left wing, sometimes switching to the right wing, the Brazilian striker wearing the number 10 jersey put Bolivia's defense under constant pressure. In the 10th minute, Neymar skillfully moved the ball to open the score. In the 44th minute, this player's role became more prominent when he made a pass to Gabriel Jesus to increase the score to 4-0.

Bolivia's heavy defeat was largely due to their individual skills being too weak compared to Brazil's. The visitors also created quite a few attacks, but most of them did not pose a threat to Brazil and had to stop before the 16m50 mark. The home team only needed to defend at a decent level to cut off all of their opponents' efforts.

Besides individual skills, Bolivia also lacked the speed and ability to judge situations to keep up with Brazil. After quick coordination, Neymar and his teammates easily brought the ball into the penalty area to finish. All four goals in the first half came from such a scenario.

Bolivia could not keep up with Brazil's fast and skillful players.

After the break, Bolivia pressed hard but failed to make much of it. The effort only produced one notable incident: Yasmani elbowed Neymar, leaving him bleeding from the face and forced to leave the pitch. Roberto Firmino soon arrived and headed home a corner kick to make it 5-0.

In the tenth round taking place in the middle of next week, Brazil will visit Venezuela. This is also a match predicted with a high probability of victory leaning towards Neymar and his teammates.

According to VNE