Socceroos live updates: Australia vs Brazil, international friendly in Brisbane

It wasn't just the Brazilian press with the knives out after the Townsville draw.

With Carlo Ancelotti's close ties with Real Madrid in Spain, the local press there are always going to be keen to keen an eye on how he's doing - especially with Barcelona making such a good start to La Liga season.

Spanish paper Marca said Ancelotti "still has a lot of work ahead of him" to change Brazil, saying that the team lacked creativity and tactical organization.

Another Spanish agency, AS said although Ancelotti managed to avoid a "disaster," Brazil's traditional "beautiful game" is a thing of the past and needs to be completely reinvented.

The scathing analysis of the Brazilian public to the 1-1 draw on Friday makes for quite entertaining reading.

Brazilian broadcasting giant Globo has a rating platform on their website, where the public can give a score out of 10 for a players performance - a pretty common aspect of South American and European football reporting.

The numbers are pretty bad.

Vinícius Júnior was particularly brutally treated by the public, which gave him a score of 1.7. Globo, which gave him 5.0, said "He made relatively simple mistakes and produced little."

Highlights can always be cut to make people look bad, but these do tell a story...

Only one person involved with the game was scored lower than Viní Jr, his coach Carlos Ancelotti.

Ancelotti was given a score of just 1.4 by the public, and 4.5 by Globo, who criticised his 4-2-4 formation as being flawed.

Rayan, who scored the goal, was given a score of 6.6 by the public and 7.0 by Globo - one of just three players to score more than 5.0 in the public vote.

Other notable public scores were 2.3 for goalkeeper Hugo Souza, 2.5's for the "below average" Bruno Guimarães and Raphinha, while 2.8 was Douglas Santos's score.

Globo's reporter Cahê Mota noted that Brazil repeated many of the same mistakes that plagued their poor World Cup showing in the first game in Townsville.

"The poor performance in the draw against Australia leaves more questions than certainties for the national team at the start of this cycle leading up to 2030," he wrote, saying that the challenge Carlo Ancelotti faces goes well beyond a renewal of the squad.

"The gaps in midfield remain an obvious weakness. Danilo Santos (3.9 public score) and Bruno Guimarães (2.5 public score) were overwhelmed both in and out of possession, forced to drop deep during the build-up and cover vast amounts of space against Australia's attacks," Mota added.

Brazil were only saved by a last-second header from Rayan in Townsville on Friday.

Carlo Ancelotti said post-match that the draw was "deserved" and that Brazil did well on what was a pretty poor pitch (which it was).

"It doesn't taste like a defeat because it's a draw," Ancelotti said.

"We could have won, we had chances.

"It was difficult to play on this pitch.

"We responded after conceding and secured a deserved draw.

"These are tests we have to run, handing out opportunities and moving forward.

"It was a test. The next one will be another test.

"This isn't the start of a cycle, it's a continuation. The priority is to give minutes to those who play less, young players with potential like Endrick and Estêvão."

Ancelotti added that friendlies were designed to allow coaches to test things out ahead of more important tests ahead.

"The fans need to be patient," he said.

"When official competitions arrive, we will be ready.

[The game] Some positive aspects... We had the chance to take the lead; we just lacked precision in the final third. The team fought until the end, didn't want to lose, and didn't lose."

As much as everyone is expecting Brazil to bounce back in Brisbane this evening, Socceroos striker Tete Yengi reckons Australia can raise their game as well.

"They have that winning mentality, that fight and they're going to step it up again," Yengi said.

"So we have to be ready. We have to match that, and we also believe that we can be better too.

"So yeah, we're going to show that."

It's probably fair to say that Yengi only started in Townsville due to the injury suffered by in-form Mohamed Touré, whose sublime scoring record for Norwich put him right in the frame before he dislocated his shoulder.

But Yengi has been good for J-League side Machida Zelvia too, with two goals and an assist in eight matches for the Tokyo-based side.

"I'm a bit different to what we have," he said of his ability to hold the ball up.

"The boss has put a lot of lot of faith in me.

"I love opportunities like this where I have to step up. That's my nature. That's my game."

- with AAP

Aziz Behich may be the only A-League-based star in the Socceroos camp.

He may be, at 35 years old, the veteran of the team.

He was also the only player on the pitch in Townsville to have not played a game since the World Cup, owing to the A-League's absurdly long offseason.

But you wouldn't have known it as the Melbourne City fullback tore up and down the flank as the Socceroos laid down a marker against the world's fifth-ranked side.

But with age and experience comes the knowledge that Brazil are unlikely to be caught napping twice in a row.

"We've set the bar high for ourselves … it was good, but we need to be better," Behich said.

Read more from the Socceroos camp here.

This time last year, Lucas Herrington called Lang Park his home ground.

The teenager was playing for the Brisbane Roar, having come through the youth set up at Brisbane City after playing junior football at Taringa Rovers and Toowong.

Fast forward a year and the now 19-year-old has played in the USA for Colorado, for the Socceroos in a World Cup, and in the Premier League for Hull City.

It's been a whirlwind adventure for the softly spoken Socceroo, whose calm and composed demeanour on the pitch is what separates him from the rest.

Herrington was very good against Brazil in Townsville, not making a single tackle but made two shot blocks, two interceptions and four clearances — something that says a lot more about his ability to read a game than anything else.

Now, in front of the same friends and family who may have watched him play at Jack Speare Park in Indooroopilly, he'll be playing for the Socceroos at a sold out Lang Park — as long as they got tickets.

"It's always been a dream of mine to represent the Socceroos in Brisbane, so I can't wait." Herrington said.

Dreams can come true, something all Brisbane junior players should bare in mind.

Brazil has named seven new players in the starting lineup, with the side also shifting to a 4-3-3 line up.

Raphinha shifts to the centre of a three-pronged attack, with Vinícius Júnior on the left and Friday's goal scorer Rayan on the right.

Just a reminder that Raphinha has scored 14 goals in his last eight games for Barcelona playing in a false nine role, so you sense he might be pretty happy playing up top.

The entire defence has been changed too, Cruzeiro keeper Otávio coming in to make his first senior start for the Seleção.

Vanderson, Jair, Gabriel Magalhães and Mauro Júnior come into an all-new back four.

Danilo and Bruno Guimarães are retained in midfield, with 21-year-old Santos midfielder Gabriel Bontempo also coming in.

Hello everyone and welcome to the ABC Sport coverage of the Socceroos' second match against Brazil!

My name is Simon Smale and I am on site at Lang Park for tonight's match, where a wave of yellow, green and gold has descended and, as I walked to the ground, was circling around the entrances waiting for the party to get going.

Now, the gates have opened and that mass of humanity is flooding into the stands as we speak, for what promises a special night of action.

We have a sell out crowd for a soccer match at Lang Park the first time since the FIFA Women's World Cup third/fourth play off in 2023, and that's pretty exciting if you ask me.

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