Brazil escape Morocco scare

Vinicius Junior (Brazil) scores and celebrates his teams first goal. Brazil and Morocco, Met Life Stadium, New jersey, USA on June 14 2026. (Photo by Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Brazil 1-1 Morocco

Brazil kicked off their World cup campaign with a 1-1 draw against Morocco on Saturday at the MetLife Stadium.

The Selecao suffered in the opening 20 minutes of the match, with Morocco dominating proceedings and applying lots of pressure on the Brazil defense.

The African champions eventually did find a way through. 21 minutes in, Ismael Saibari ran onto a Brahim Diaz pass that perfectly split the defense and showed great composure, chipping the ball over the onrushing Alisson in the Brazil goal to give Morocco the goal that they deserved .

That lead would only last 10 minutes however when Vinicius Junior showed his quality and cut inside and whipped a shot into the far corner, leaving Yassine Bounou with no chance. This was Vinicius Jr’s 10th goal in what was his 50th appearance for his country.

The two teams went into half time level with the game evenly matched however, Morocco looked the more dangerous going forward.

Brazil made two changes at the break, with Fabinho coming on for Casemiro, and Danilo replacing Ibanez who had both seen themselves booked in the first half. Casemiro in particular struggled to get involved in the game throughout the first half.

It was a less entertaining second half which saw both teams have some half chances, but no real clear cut openings.

One of the standouts of the match was the performance from 18 year old Ayyoub Bouaddi, who ran the show in midfield on his world cup debut for Morocco, with neither Casemiro or his replacement Fabinho having an easy time against him.

Morocco’s midfielder #06 Ayyoub Bouaddi and Brazil’s forward #07 Vinicius Junior fight for the ball during thematch between Brazil and Morocco at the New York/New Jersey Stadium. (Photo by Mauro PIMENTEL / AFP via Getty Images)

Brazil came into the tournament with minor optimism, but they definitely have work to do if they want to have any chance of making it to the latter stages of the tournament. Carlo Ancelotti stated after the game “I think we have to reassess what we did in this first match. We didn’t play well.” The five time World champions now turn their attention to Friday, where they will face Haiti in Philadelphia.

Morocco however, were very impressive in this game and have definitely shown that they are building on their run to the semi-final back in 2022, looking like a potential dark horse once again. Their focus is now on Scotland who they face on Friday in Boston.