Chile vs Brazil

Out-of-sorts Chile face arguably the toughest test in South American football as they welcome continental juggernauts Brazil to the Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos.

This international window could prove crucial to Chile’s hopes of advancing to the World Cup finals for the first time since 2014, considering their slow start to the ongoing qualifying campaign. The hosts have picked up just one win from their first six World Cup qualifiers (D3, L2), coming from behind to draw both previous such contests. However, Brazil’s visit is likely to stir some painful memories within the home faithful as ‘La Roja’ have lost their last two competitive H2Hs without finding the net, which has been the case in their previous two competitive fixtures. Having that said, the Chileans last failed to score in a World Cup qualifier back in October 2017, although it incidentally came against Brazil of all teams.

Meanwhile, Brazil appear to be on course of continuing to be the only nation to have featured in all FIFA World Cup editions following a mesmerizing start to this World Cup qualifying campaign. Ahead of the kick-off, the Brazilians remain the only South American nation to have won all six qualifiers, doing so by an aggregate scoreline of 16-2. Additionally, each of Brazil’s three away World Cup qualifying triumphs so far yielded a margin of precisely two goals, with the ‘Selecao’ getting off the mark within 33 minutes of play on every occasion. In addition to keeping more clean sheets (5) than any other CONMEBOL side in the ongoing qualifying cycle, Tite’s men have scored 2+ goals on more occasions (5) than any other team. But after surrendering continental supremacy to arch-rivals Argentina in the Copa America grand final back in July, the visitors could be troubled by a lack of confidence here.