Five-time winners Brazil will be very pleased with their draw, they will look to bounce back from their disappointing home World Cup and win the trophy for a record 6th time.
It seems likely that Serbia, Switzerland and Costa Rica will battle it out for second position – this is Serbia’s second World Cup as an independent country.
Switzerland stormed through qualifying but ended up in the play-offs due to their defeat by Portugal in the final group game, while Costa Rica will look to channel their experience in Brazil to have another brilliant World Cup.
Neymar, PSG’s £200million man, will look to avenge the 7-1 2014 semi-final loss to Germany in the Maracanã which he missed with a fracture in his lower back after a challenge by Colombia’s Juan Camilo Zúñiga in the quarter-final.
What they said
Tite, coach of Brazil: “Honestly, the teams are so knowledgeable these days, so its risky it try and guess what kind of match these will be. Of course, we need adjustments for every opponent we are going to face. We’re going to study quite a bit.”
Group E factfile
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In 2014, Costa Rica made it to the quarterfinals beating Greece 5-3 on pens – their odds for the tournament was 2500-1 and they were also in England’s group drawing 0-0 in the group stages.
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Costa Rica lost in the quarterfinals to Holland losing on penalties 4-3 and during that tournament their world ranking went up 12 places reaching 16th.
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Brazil are five-time champions first winning in 1958, their most recent World Cup win was in 2002 in South Korea/Japan.
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Pele remains Brazil’s top scorer on 77 goals.
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Neymar is the only Brazilian footballer to grace the cover of Time magazine.
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Neymar was transferred to PSG for £200m in the summer.
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This is Serbia’s second World Cup as an independent country.
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Brazil defeated Costa Rica in their two previous World Cup meetings: 1-0 in 1990, 5-2 in 2002.
