South Korea vs Brazil 2012: Neymar Drives Olympics Hope
LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – When South Korea vs Brazil 2012 takes to the field today (en vivo 2:45 PM EST) for their Olympics Semifinals Men’s soccer showdown, two players will be driving Brazil’s offense: Neymar and Damião. While South Korea vs Brazil should showcase strong futbol defenses, the key today will be the offensive strengths of these teams. As news analysts reminded fans this week, no men’s soccer team during these Olympics 2012 games has delivered more goals, in such a short time, than Brazil. In contrast, Korea reached the semi-finals with less goals than most of its competitors. Could that pose trouble for the Koreans today?
Leandro Damião and Neymar (Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior) have been stellar this summer. The two have driven Brazil through the Group rounds and now Knockout stages.
Neymar won the 2011 South American Footballer of the Year and has been heralded by news for his unmatched “awareness and match intelligence” which means that “he can operate wide or through the middle”. Damião, in turn, only scored his first goal for Brazil just last September.
Together, Neymar and Damião dominated their opponents in the Group stage. In the team’s opener against Egypt, Neymar and Damião drove Brazil to a win with Neymar shooting the game winning goal only four minutes after Damião. Against New Zealand, Damião had led a drive to give Brazil and 3-0 win. And against Belarus, Neymar had the game winning goal at the sixty-five minute mark before Oscar delivered two more goals for Team Brazil later in the match.
Against Honduras in the quarterfinals, the game was won yet again by Damião and Neymar. Damião delivered two of the goals against Honduras, including the game winning shot at the sixty minute mark, while Neymar scored fifty minutes into play.
South Korea, in turn, has been a difficult team for news analysts to predict. Korea’s showing in the Group rounds was anything but stellar. South Korea advanced out of a very weak Group B that was led by Mexico and featured unimpressive Gabon and Switzerland. And yet, South Korea failed to beat Gabon and Mexico and narrowly beat the Swiss. On July 29, Kim Bo-Kyung delivered the game winning shot, scoring at the sixty-four minute mark.
South Korea will not win today if they fail to score again. Of three Group action games, the Koreans scored a mere two goals and won only one match. In the quarterfinals, the team scored a mere goal, and were sent to penalty kicks. A miss by Sturridge for Great Britain sent the Koreans to this semi-finals match today.
In total, Brazil has shot thirteen goals in the tournament compared to South Korea’s three goals. As a result, if the South Korea can’t control the Brazilian offense, fans will watch Brazil advance to the finals after today’s match. For live updates, click HERE.
Olympics, Soccer
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