Brazil Advances to Knockout Round on 3–0 Win Over Scotland

Brazil’s Neymar Junior returned to the World Cup pitch on June 24 as his team dominated Scotland 3-0 in Miami to advance from the group stage to the knockout round.

But he would make his first appearance late in the game, leaving the goal scoring to Vinícius Júnior, who earned two in the first half, and Matheus Cunha in the second half.

“Vini Jr.,” as it says on the back of his kit, drew first blood just seven minutes into the game, taking advantage of a botched clearing attempt from the Scottish goalkeeper Angus Gunn. 

Vini Jr. and Cunha continued to best the back three Scottish defenders—Kenny McLean, Scott McTominay, and Ben Gannon-Doak—for most of the 90-minute match. The second goal came from Vini Jr. again, five minutes into the stoppage time at the end of the first half. Then, Cunha made it 3–0 by the 60-minute mark.

Brazil would ultimately get 21 shots off, with nine getting on goal. Gunn managed to make five saves, and his teammates would block three more. They also won nearly twice as many duels for the ball as their opponents, as well as far more interceptions, ball recoveries, and successful attempts to clear the ball from their end.

Scotland would get their chances, taking 14 shots with five landing on goal. But the Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson Becker managed to stop all of them. The shutout marks his second clean sheet of the tournament, following Brazil’s 3–0 victory over Haiti on June 19.

While this victory secures Brazil’s place in the 32-team knockout round, it leaves the Cinderella Scotland team at risk of elimination. The Scots fall to third place in their group, and only the top eight of the 12 third-place finishing teams will get a spot in the knockout round. Who those eight teams are will be determined by a number of factors. They include the greatest number of points earned in the three group games, goal differential—number of goals scored compared to goals scored against—the number of yellow and red cards accumulated over the three games, and the team’s FIFA/Coca-Cola power ranking.

Scotland finishes the group stage with three points, a -3 goal differential, three yellow cards, and a FIFA/Coca-Cola power ranking of 42. The traveling Scottish fan base, the Tartan Army, will not know if their team has made it to the knockout round or not until the group stage ends on June 27.

Meanwhile, Morocco finished second in the group and earned one of the 32 spots in a 4-2 win against Haiti, whose first World Cup appearance in decades was brought to an early end.