Brazil, Germany take centre stage in today’s fixtures

Brazil will be eager to bounce back in their first game against Switzerland after their dismal outing at the last World Cup, which they hosted.

Coach Tite will be hoping that the players live up to expectation this time around after the disastrous outing that left their fans disappointment.

This year, the emergence of players like Gabriel Jesus, Philippe Coutinho and the revival of Paulinho has taken responsibility totally off Neymar’s shoulders.

According to Chelsea’s midfielder, Willian, the players have put everything that happened to them at the last tournament in Brazil behind them.

“The national team has gone through many highs and lows since the 2014 World Cup. Today we are very mature and know what we have to do on the pitch. With the arrival of Tite, he brought various ideas and we bring these into the training and games. Brazil is living in a very good moment, matured a lot and are really ready to contest the World Cup,” he said.

Also, the defending champion, Germany will be clashing with Mexico in their opening fixture of the World Cup today.

Draxler, who captained a largely second-string Germany to the Confederations Cup title, warned that today’s encounter would be a completely different affair.

Germany have won all three tournament encounters against the Mexicans, including their 4-1 demolition at last year’s Confederations Cup. German FA records state that in 11 matches Mexico has managed just one victory.