“Very frustrated” – Newcastle United star gutted about national team, missing European football

With Brazil failing to beat Costa Rica in the opening round of Copa América, many people have been trying to find the reasons why, despite dominating the game, the five-time World Cup winners couldn’t score a goal.

Newcastle United star Bruno Guimarães had a decent match, but was also one of those who missed the target in crucial plays, and now tried to explain the disappointing result.

The midfielder was interviewed by Globo Esporte, and shared his feelings about the 0-0 draw, highlighting the big frustration there is in the squad right now.

“We’re very frustrated, to be honest. I think we had the best chances of the game. But when you wear the Brazil shirt, you have to win, especially games like this. We talked about it for a while, Dorival gave us a lot of morale, he gave us confidence, we have a lot of faith in his work, everything he asked of us was done, there were just a few details missing. Stay focussed and I believe we’ll qualify.”

With the Copa América being played in the United States and some NFL stadiums being used, they’ve been using reduced size football pitches. The Newcastle player believes that’s a problem as well, as defensive teams end up having an advantage in that situation.

“To be honest, it’s difficult to talk about it, you see it in Europe, the pitches, everything, I don’t want to make excuses or anything, but it really favours the team that only defends. It’s difficult to score, they’re always well placed, it’s complicated. But you have to play, we knew it was going to be like this, we’re not going to complain about regulations or anything, but if we want to match European football it’s the details that make all the difference. But even with all that, we had plenty of chances, we created a lot, we should have won. To be honest, we should have won, I’m very sad, very frustrated, but mentally we’re going to stay strong to win the next game.”

Brazil will now be playing Paraguay and Colombia in the upcoming group stage matches, and will need to show something better to get qualification. Bruno is hopeful that they’ll improve, and he can avoid heading back to Newcastle so soon in the summer.

“When we shot we hit the post, we had other chances, but let’s focus on the next game. There’s nothing we can do about it, we leave here sad, but confident that there’s a lot ahead of us.”