Brazil national team fans celebrate (Reuters)
The quarter-final stage of the 2022 World Cup will kick off on Friday with a match between Brazil and Croatia (17:00).
On the face of it, the glittering Selção, with a list of stars and a glorious history, are clear favorites, but the truth is that in Brazil there is a great and real fear.
The reason?
The record against European opponents in the knockout stages.
In fact, since beating Germany in the 2002 World Cup final, Brazil have not beaten an opponent from the old continent in the knockout stage of the World Cup.
20 years and four World Cups have passed since then, and in each edition, the Celsau ended their journey after a meeting with a European team.
Even when they were favorites, even when they hosted.
All of Brazil's victories in the knockout stages of World Cups since 2002 have come against opponents from South and Central America and Africa.
Never against a European opponent.
They beat Serbia both now and four years ago and even beat Croatia 1:3 in the opening game in 2014 and 0:1 in 2006 - but that was in the group stage.
Brazil's historical record against Europeans in World Cups is still positive: 20 wins against 11 losses.
But when it comes to a team like Brazil, it should be noted that this is not an alarming figure.
The streak started in 2006.
Ronaldinho and Henry (Photo: GettyImages, Ben Radford)
2006:
Brazil defeated Ghana 3:0 in the round of 16, but succumbed to Thierry Henry's goal in the 57th minute and lost to France 1:0 in the quarterfinals.
2010:
Brazil passed Chile in the round of 16 with an easy 0:3, but lost to the Netherlands 2:1 in the quarterfinals.
Robinho scored first after 10 minutes, but Wesley Sneijder scored a brace in the second half to turn things around.
2014:
Brazil passed Chile on penalties in the eighth, overcame Colombia in the quarter with 1:2 and then met Germany in the semi.
Everyone knows how it ends in the end.
2018:
Brazil beat Mexico 0:2 in the eighth, but Belgium was bigger than them in the quarter with 1:2, when they scored both goals as early as the 31st minute.
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Brazil vs. Germany in 2014 (Photo: GettyImages)
Because of the corona virus, Brazil did not often meet European opponents for preparatory games in the last two or three years.
The preparatory games in the months leading up to the World Cup were also against Tunisia, Ghana, Japan, South Korea and Bolivia.
In fact, Brazil's last European opponent before the successful matches against Switzerland and Serbia in the current World Cup, was the Czech Republic in March 2019 (!).
So it ended 1:3 to Selceo.
"It's something that's talked about a lot," said defender Danilo, "fortunately or not, we're South Americans and obviously we don't play against opponents from Europe in the World Cup qualifiers. On the other hand, most of the players on the team play in Europe and we know the style."
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