Casemiro offers relief as Brazil show symptoms of Neymardepencia

Brazil did enough to get through their group with a game in hand by beating Switzerland, but this wasn’t their most sparkling performance…

For Brazil this second group game became an unexpected and unwelcome test of an idea that has been exercising the Brazilian media over the last few months: that Neymardepencia might be on the wane. This is the name given in to the belief that the Brazil national team had become over-reliant on this one particular player, most vividly witnessed before the 2014 World Cup semi-final in Belo Horizonte, when an injury brought about an atmosphere around the stadium which felt at times a little bit like a wake, all the more so when the team brought a shirt with his name and number on it. And we all know what happened next.

Having damaged his ankle ligaments in their win against Serbia, Brazil have been a little coy over when he’ll be back. It is commonly understood that he would miss their two remaining group matches, but might this extend into the knockout stages of the competition as well? And how might this affect the confidence of the Brazil team?

It had been considered that the worst excesses of Neymardepencia had drained away as a new generation of brilliant Brazilian attackers broke through. There was no need for Brazil to feel as though they needed to depend on moments of magic from this one particular player. Maybe the pressure that was being put on this one particular player was causing more harm on the application of pressure upon this one pair shoulders than he could ever fix, and that bringing through players of the calibre of Casemiro, Vinicius Junior, Gabriel Jesus, Raphinha and Richarlison were lowering that burden of expectation.

And true enough, Brazil certainly demonstrated against Serbia that they do not have to be dependent upon his goals. At the same time that Neymar was substituted in this match Richarlison was also withdrawn, but his circumstances were somewhat different. Firstly, he wasn’t injured, and secondly, he’d scored both of the goals in what turned out to be a 2-0 win, the second of which may well end up a strong contender for goal of the tournament. While Neymar may have been fretting about whether he will be involved in this tournament again at all, Richarlison could relax in the warming glow of a job very well done indeed.

But which way does this go? How far are Brazil past Neymardepencia? In 1962 when Pele got injured, Garrincha stepped up and made that tournament his own. So…