Star-studded Brazil overwhelming favourites in friendly against Japan

Brazil are the obvious favourites in the match and are expected to play most of their stars except for Liverpool midfielder Coutinho.
With World Cup qualification now sealed, Brazil will now be looking to sharpen their teeth in the upcoming friendly matches. The first of them will be against Japan in Lille, France. Brazil are the obvious favourites in the match and are expected to play most of their stars except maybe for Liverpool midfielder Coutinho.
had earlier emerged that Coutinho is out with an adductor muscle injury in his left thigh and will miss the Japan game. However he is expected to make a comeback in Brazil’s following match against England. Apart from Coutinho, captain Neymar and stars such as Marcelo, Thiago Silva, Willian, Firmino are all in Lille.
It may only be a friendly of little consequence for Brazil but for Japan, it is one of the most important fixtures of the calendar. Japan boss Vahid Halilhodzic starred in France during his playing days with Nantes in the 1980s. He also oversaw local football club Lille’s return to the French top flight in 2000. “It’s a great pleasure. I don’t live very far from here,” he is quoted as saying by AFP, “I told my players, ‘We’re playing at mine, we have to win or it will be impossible for me to keep living here.'”
He did concede that his team has little chance of getting a win out of this match. “Brazil are the big favourites here,” Halilhodzic said on Friday’s encounter. “Right now they’re the best team in the world but we’ll try. We’ll be able to glean information from this match and the one against Belgium (on Tuesday), two of the best sides in the world.”
Brazil’s 2014 World Cup campaign ended in dissapointment as they failed to make it to the top three. This also included an unprecendented 7-1 mauling at the hands of eventual champions Germany in the semi-finals. Since then, though, they have gone through a face lift and have stormed into the 2018 World Cup top of their qualification group.