Vinicius Jr spared Brazil the embarrassment of defeat in an opening World Cup match for the first since 1934 as his spectacular solo goal earned a draw for the five-time winners against Morocco at the New York New Jersey Stadium.<\/p>\n
Brazil fell behind in the 21st minute when Ismael Saibari lifted the ball over the onrushing Alisson Becker from outside the area following a lapse in communication between the Liverpool goalkeeper and his defenders, Gabriel and Marquinhos.<\/p>\n
It was the first time the African champions had scored against South American opposition at the World Cup, having failed to do so against Peru in 1970 and Brazil in 1998.<\/p>\n
Morocco continued to dominate and, by the 30th minute, had registered 12 shots – the most Brazil have faced in a World Cup match since their encounter with Mexico in 2018.<\/p>\n
But as Mohamed Ouahbi’s side failed to capitalise on their advantage, Brazil drew level 13 minutes before the break through Vinicius.<\/p>\n
Making his 50th appearance for the Selecao, he collected a ball from Bruno Guimaraes inside the area, cut inside, and unleashed a fierce strike past Yassine Bounou.<\/p>\n
Former West Ham midfielder Lucas Paqueta almost put Brazil ahead in first-half stoppage time, but his acrobatic effort was tipped behind for a corner.<\/p>\n
With several members of Brazil’s triumphant 2002 squad watching on in New Jersey – including Ronaldo, Kaka and Roberto Carlos – Carlo Ancelotti’s side began to move through the gears after the break. <\/p>\n
And although chances were at a premium for both sides, Raphinha came closest to finding an elusive second when he narrowly failed to connect with Guimaraes’ low-driven cross across the face of goal.<\/p>\n
The draw means Morocco’s wait to win their opening game at a World Cup goes on, while Brazil’s remarkable 92\u2011year unbeaten first-match record remains intact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vinicius Jr spared Brazil the embarrassment of defeat in an opening World Cup match for the first since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-637643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}