With David Luiz, one can always expect a momentary lapse of reason. A Peruvian side accepted Luiz’s gift gratefully when in the 3rd minute, he failed to deal with a long ball. With Paolo Guerrero putting pressure, the PSG defender instead of kicking it out decided to dribble his way out of trouble, lost control with the ball coming loose to Jefferson in goal taking him by surprise. The Brazilian goalie scuffed it straight to Cristian Cueva who controlled and buried his shot. The lead was short lived as Brazil equalized two minutes later as Dani Alves’s pin point cross found Neymar elevating and heading the ball past Pedro Gallese in goal.
Peru just like Venezuela did against Colombia, probed the Brazilian defense with some free flowing football with the bustling Guerrero causing problems for the Brazilian defense. Brazil, with its plethora of talented individuals, led by Neymar, relied on high speed counterattacks but could not break down the organized Peruvian defense led by Josepmir Ballon and Carlos Zambrano. The new Fred was not a improvement over the old Fred, distinguishing himself with ineffectual high leg flares but was mostly marked out by Luis Advincula. The match took on the farcical with Neymar scooping out the shaving foam used as a marker during a free kick causing the Peruvians to protest.
Dunga sent in Douglas Costa for an ineffective Diego Tardelli and the Shakhtar Donetsk striker almost gave Brazil the lead from a breakaway but his effort was just wide off goal and too long for Neymar. Just when Peru looked like they were going to pull off a creditable draw against opponents who had piled 11 goals to nothing in their last three matches, an accelerating Neymar slid a slide rule pass which dissected the Peruvian defense to find Costa at the far post for the tap in.