Brazil avoid humiliation as Ancelotti's calm pays off

Half-time in Houston and Brazil's players trudged off knowing what the mood would be back home. They were 45 minutes from another early World Cup exit – their swiftest since 1966 – and national humiliation. Japan had kept Brazil at arm's length in their last-32 tie, got themselves in front, and looked quite comfortable. For a team who had not come from behind to win a World Cup knockout game since 2002, things did not look good and, for those watching on, an upset was starting to look a realistic prospect.

But we should have known better than to doubt Carlo Ancelotti. The Brazil coach is a serial winner: a record five Champions League wins as a manager, trophies in all five of Europe's major leagues. You name it, he's won it – at least at club level. But this is his first international job and the Italian is Brazil's first foreign coach at a World Cup, so surely even he was a little concerned after the first 45 minutes.

"No. Not really. I was confident in our team," he said. Unflustered to the last. By that stage, of course, Ancelotti had masterminded Brazil's first comeback victory in a World Cup knockout game since beating Turkey in the semi-finals some 24 years ago. Crisis had been averted and a last-16 tie against either Ivory Coast or Norway awaits. But there is no doubt it required the 67-year-old keeping his cool to get them there.

Pressure and tradition

Ancelotti has made a strong start to life as an international manager, winning nine of his first 15 games in charge of Brazil. But while he might not have felt it, the pressure was undeniably on as he walked back to the dressing room to deliver his half-time team talk.

"It was [a scare for Brazil]," South American football expert Tim Vickery told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I would like to impress on you the size of the humiliation that this Brazil side were facing at half-time. Brazil, for obvious reasons, they are traditionalist snobs. The idea of being knocked out, not in the quarter-final, but in the last 32 against a team from Asia. Even if it is unfair – of all the teams that Brazil could face as group winners, Japan were the most dangerous to them – these players were facing a historic humiliation."

While a number of Brazil players struggled in the first half, the only substitution Ancelotti made at the break was enforced as Endrick replaced the injured Lucas Paqueta. "Sometimes Ancelotti's greatest ability is to do nothing," Vickery added. "An oasis of calm in all the chaos around him – and it has paid off again."

Ancelotti acknowledged that Brazil had "ran into some trouble" against a well-organised Japan side, but backed his players to get themselves out of their predicament. "Our team was out on the field. We were not lost like in the first half of Morocco," he said.

Tactical shift: Crosses and intensity

The personnel largely stayed the same but it was a different Brazil team in the second half. There was a purpose and intensity to their play that had been lacking in the first half and a number of tactical tweaks, most notably a willingness to get the ball into the box.

Brazil put in 12 crosses in the first half but generally tried to break down a stubborn Japan backline with the intricate, short passing you might expect of the South American side. In the second, that was forgotten as they put 28 crosses into the box. Even taking into account six minutes of stoppage time, that is under two minutes per cross. With runners arriving on the blindside of the defenders at the back post, Japan struggled to cope and it was little surprise that Casemiro's equaliser came from this simple but effective ploy.

"Changes at half-time by Carlo Ancelotti made the difference," former England full-back Stephen Warnock told BBC Radio 5 Live. "Japan couldn't deal with their balls into the box." Ex-Celtic striker Chris Sutton added: "It is about finding a way."