It caused a surprise result in their opener as they drew 1-1 with Switzerland and then almost had one foot out of the World Cup exit door against Costa Rica, before managing 91st and 97th minute goals. So Tite, satisfied with the overall play of his team, has put the side to work in recent days and spent their last two training sessions focused on improving their form in front of goal.
In this year’s tournament, Brazil need 14.3 shots in order to score a goal, a statistic that was much more dramatic in the 90th minute of the game against Costa Rica. Before Philippe Coutinho made the breakthrough, that figure was at 41 shots!
The many shots they had which were kept out by Keylor Navas make up a lot of that data but Tite knows that if his Selecao side don’t have their shooting bots on, they could have a serious problem against Serbia. In the last two training sessions, Tite has challenged his players with finishing from all possible positions and recreated real life situations which could occur in a game. They have worked on scoring from crosses into the box, one on ones with the goalkeeper, shots from the edge of the area, strategic moves. It meant that Alisson, Ederson and Cassio suffered a real bombardment throughout training from their teammates.
That is because the work wasn’t solely focused on the attackers but on all of the players of the national team. Defenders, midfielders, wingers, everyone was involved in trying to improve their accuracy in front of goal. For Tite though, as he told his players, the problem is not so much in the technical quality of the shots but the mentality with which they face them. Obsessed with everything relating to psychology, the Brazil coach believes that the anxiety of players to win games impacts them when finishing.