Brazil seeks Silva lining for semis as Argentina suffers di Maria woe
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HOST Brazil is waiting anxiously to see whether FIFA will rescind the suspension of captain Thiago Silva for today’s semifinal with Germany while Argentina must make up for the sizeable absence of Angel di Maria for its clash with the Netherlands.
If Brazil’s appeal against Silva’s booking in the bruising quarterfinal with Colombia — which saw Colombian playmaker James Rodriguez get particularly rough treatment which went unpunished — is successful his return would compensate a little for the absence through injury of its star player Neymar.
The card against Silva was “unjustly shown” and the defender should therefore be allowed to face the Germans in Belo Horizonte, the Brazilian Football Confederation said.
It also wants FIFA to punish Colombian Juan Zuniga, whose knee in Neymar’s back fractured a vertebrae and ended the Barcelona striker’s tournament.
Despite the huge gap left by Neymar, German veteran midfielder Bastia Schweinsteiger believes it could prove a focal point for the rest of the team to rally around.
“It’ll bring the (Brazil) team together and they’ll want to win the title for him,” he said.
Schweinsteiger, who will be hoping to have a happier result than the previous two World Cup semifinals he has played in, like his coach Joachim Loew has concerns over the Brazilians robust approach.
“The Brazilians here aren’t the magicians of old, the team has changed and so has their playing style,” said the 29-year-old midfielder, who is not a stranger to tackling hard himself.
“Hard challenges are definitely part of their game, it’s something we have to be careful of and the referee (Marco Rodriguez, who was in charge of the Italy-Uruguay group game and did not see the biting incident involving Luis Suarez and Giorgio Chiellini), too.”
Argentina approaches its first semifinal since 1990 having won all its games by one-goal margins and with Lionel Messi having scored four of its goals.
However, the loss of di Maria is an enormous blow to the team as he has been impressive in all its games and scored the only goal in the last-16 clash with Switzerland.
On the plus side Argentina says that striker Sergio Aguero is fit to return after a leg muscle problem ruled him out of the match against Switzerland.
Midfielder Javier Mascherano said it was a blow to lose di Maria but the sudden return to form of Gonzalo Higuain, who scored the only goal in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Belgium, could compensate for that.
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