Neymar scored a hat-trick as World Cup hosts Brazil routed South Africa 5-0 while bitter rivals Argentina laboured to a 0-0 draw in Romania with Lionel Messi struggling with illness.
On a bumper night of friendly internationals, just 99 days out from the start of the World Cup, Brazil were too hot for an outclassed South Africa at Soweto’s Soccer City, the venue for the 2010 final.
Chelsea’s Oscar opened the scoring on 10 minutes, Barcelona ace Neymar struck once in the first half and twice in the second, and Manchester City’s Fernandinho marked his first start with a goal as well.
It was the final warm-up for the 2014 World Cup title favourites before the May announcement of the 23-man squad.
South Africa, who stunned world and European champions Spain 1-0 at the same stadium last November but have not qualified for the World Cup in Brazil, were overawed and outclassed.
‘It was not an easy game. The scoreline does not tell the story. South Africa played well -- they moved the ball well,’ said Brazil coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari.
‘The difference was that Brazil have very special players. We are happy with what we saw, but there are one or two things we need to work on, and that will be done at training sessions. The players worked hard for the team and not themselves.’
In Bucharest, Argentina could only draw 0-0 against Romania in a friendly which saw Neymar’s Barcelona teamate Lionel Messi play the whole of the match despite being physically sick seven minutes in.
Argentinian coach Alex Sabella started with pretty much his first choice side with Messi in the playmaking role while Sergio Aguero and Gonzalo Higuain were the strikeforce and other regulars such as Angel di Maria, Javier Mascherano and Pablo Zabaleta also featured. But the two-time world champions toiled to create any serious openings. In Barcelona, Colombia drew 1-1 with Tunisia as the South Americans’ lack of a cutting edge in the absence of knee injury victim Radamel Falcao was exposed.
Jurgen Klinsmann’s United States team lost 2-0 to Ukraine in a game switched to Cyprus because of the worrying security situation in the troubled European country.
Other World Cup finalists were also handed pre-tournament reality checks with Ghana going down 1-0 at Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, who’ll be making their tournament debut, slipping to a 2-0 home loss to Egypt.
Daniel Sturridge scored with an 82nd-minute header to give England a 1-0 win over Denmark on Wednesday in their last friendly before manager Roy Hodgson names his World Cup squad.
Hodgson gave a debut to Southampton left-back Luke Shaw and experimented with a malleable new playing system, but it took the second-half introductions of Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck to give England a spark.
Cristiano Ronaldo made the most of shambolic Cameroon defending by scoring twice to help his team to a 5-1 friendly win on Wednesday and become Portugal’s all-time leading scorer.
Pedro Rodriguez’s goal was enough to give World champions Spain a 1-0 win over Italy. Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa was handed his debut on home soil at the Vicente Calderon Stadium. Mario Goetze scored against the run of play early in the first half to give Germany a fortunate 1-0 win over fellow World Cup hopefuls Chile.
On a bumper night of friendly internationals, just 99 days out from the start of the World Cup, Brazil were too hot for an outclassed South Africa at Soweto’s Soccer City, the venue for the 2010 final.
Chelsea’s Oscar opened the scoring on 10 minutes, Barcelona ace Neymar struck once in the first half and twice in the second, and Manchester City’s Fernandinho marked his first start with a goal as well.
It was the final warm-up for the 2014 World Cup title favourites before the May announcement of the 23-man squad.
South Africa, who stunned world and European champions Spain 1-0 at the same stadium last November but have not qualified for the World Cup in Brazil, were overawed and outclassed.
‘It was not an easy game. The scoreline does not tell the story. South Africa played well -- they moved the ball well,’ said Brazil coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari.
‘The difference was that Brazil have very special players. We are happy with what we saw, but there are one or two things we need to work on, and that will be done at training sessions. The players worked hard for the team and not themselves.’
In Bucharest, Argentina could only draw 0-0 against Romania in a friendly which saw Neymar’s Barcelona teamate Lionel Messi play the whole of the match despite being physically sick seven minutes in.
Argentinian coach Alex Sabella started with pretty much his first choice side with Messi in the playmaking role while Sergio Aguero and Gonzalo Higuain were the strikeforce and other regulars such as Angel di Maria, Javier Mascherano and Pablo Zabaleta also featured. But the two-time world champions toiled to create any serious openings. In Barcelona, Colombia drew 1-1 with Tunisia as the South Americans’ lack of a cutting edge in the absence of knee injury victim Radamel Falcao was exposed.
Jurgen Klinsmann’s United States team lost 2-0 to Ukraine in a game switched to Cyprus because of the worrying security situation in the troubled European country.
Other World Cup finalists were also handed pre-tournament reality checks with Ghana going down 1-0 at Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, who’ll be making their tournament debut, slipping to a 2-0 home loss to Egypt.
Daniel Sturridge scored with an 82nd-minute header to give England a 1-0 win over Denmark on Wednesday in their last friendly before manager Roy Hodgson names his World Cup squad.
Hodgson gave a debut to Southampton left-back Luke Shaw and experimented with a malleable new playing system, but it took the second-half introductions of Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck to give England a spark.
Cristiano Ronaldo made the most of shambolic Cameroon defending by scoring twice to help his team to a 5-1 friendly win on Wednesday and become Portugal’s all-time leading scorer.
Pedro Rodriguez’s goal was enough to give World champions Spain a 1-0 win over Italy. Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa was handed his debut on home soil at the Vicente Calderon Stadium. Mario Goetze scored against the run of play early in the first half to give Germany a fortunate 1-0 win over fellow World Cup hopefuls Chile.