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We set you thinking Thursday 20 June 2013 Your interactive guide to the Confederations Cup 
Main menuhot newsCommentaryVoicesSingaporedaily focusChina & IndiaWorldBusinessTechSportsEntertainmentLifestyleBlogsPhotosVideosprint edition Fantasy LeagueBasketballFootballConfederations CupGolfMotor RacingTennisOther Sports FORTALEZA (Brazil) - Brazil wants to use Mexico’s desperation to its advantage when the teams meet in the Confederations Cup today (June 19).
While Brazil opened with a convincing win over Japan, Mexico lost to Italy and needs a good result against the hosts to keep alive its hopes of advancing in the World Cup warm-up tournament.
Brazilian players are hoping the Mexicans come out attacking to try for victory at the Arena Castelao, opening up spaces for Brazil to counterattack and move closer to securing a spot in the next round.
“I’m sure that Mexico will have to go for the victory and it will definitely be good for us,” Brazil striker Hulk said yesterday. “We know that they are a team with a lot of quality, but hopefully we can take advantage that they are in a more difficult situation.”
Another defeat will virtually eliminate the Mexicans from the eight-team tournament of continental champions. Mexico will play Japan in its final match in Group A.
“No matter which team we play, we will always try to win,” Mexico coach Jose Manuel de la Torre said. “We know it’s going to be hard, but we will always be prepared.”
Brazil, meanwhile, can virtually secure a spot in the semi-finals if it wins its second straight match in the World Cup warm-up competition. Brazil’s final match is against Italy.
“It’s our obligation to win this match because we know it would make it easier for us to advance,” Brazil defender David Luiz said. “Everybody knows that the final group match against Italy will be more difficult because it’s a team with four world titles and with a lot of experienced players. That means that this match against Mexico is really important.”
The Brazilians acknowledge that it won’t be an easy task getting past a Mexican team which has done well against Brazil recently. Mexico has won seven of the last 14 matches against the five-time world champions, including two of the last three. The last match was an especially disappointing loss at the London Olympics final last year, when Brazil was trying to win its first gold medal in football.
“This shows that Mexico has the ability to do it,” De la Torre said. “They players know that they can do it and this is the right stage to do it again.”
Eight Mexicans from this Confederations Cup squad were in that Olympic team, including Giovani dos Santos. Six Brazilians are back with the Selecao, including Neymar, Oscar, Thiago Silva and Hulk.
“That was a very tough loss for us because everybody in Brazil was hopeful that we would finally win the gold medal,” Hulk said. “But we also beat them recently when we played with the senior team, and that was a difficult victory because we played a man down for most of the match, so we are optimistic.”
Brazil beat Mexico 2-1 in a friendly in 2011 in Mexico, but lost 2-0 in another exhibition match last year in Dallas. The Mexicans won the last two Confederations Cup matches against Brazil, in the 1999 final in Mexico and in the 2005 group stage in Germany. AP
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His free-kick after 27 minutes and a 78th-minute strike from Mario Balotelli, either side of Javier Hernandez’s 34th-minute penalty, gave Italy a 2-1 win over Mexico in their opening Group A match on Sunday (yesterday morning, Singapore time) in Rio de Janeiro.
But the notoriously difficult to please Maracana crowd was united in its adulation of the 34-year-old, appreciating the sort of player their own country has struggled to produce and even shunned.
Pirlo’s role as a deep-lying playmaker has now become an alien concept in Brazil, where any midfielder who sits just in front of the defence is expected to perform a purely destructive role, whose primary purpose is to snuff out danger and stop anything that moves, by fair means or foul.
Former Brazil coach Mano Menezes was more adventurous, but after he was replaced by Luiz Felipe Scolari in November, there was a quick return to the old approach.
“I don’t go with this story that the defensive midfielders have to go forward all the time and try and score goals,” Scolari said shortly after taking over. “What we have to do is not concede goals. I don’t want my central defenders to be left in one-to-one situations, I’m not going to let it happen.”
While Scolari praised his side after the 3-0 win over Japan in their opening Group A match on Saturday, it would be interesting to see what he makes of the Italians.
Although Daniele De Rossi was the only player in Italy’s five-man midfield considered a tackling specialist, they more than compensated by the number of openings created, with Pirlo’s incisive passing and vision orchestrating matters.
“To look up and see a player like him in front of you is all you can ask for as a defender,” said defender Giorgio Chiellini. “You know when you give him the ball that he’s going to get the team moving forward. He’s like the oil in our engine.”
Meanwhile, Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has criticised his side’s profligacy in their 2-1 win over Uruguay in Group B, and wants an improved showing if they are to remain on track for a first Confederations Cup title.
Despite having 78 per cent of possession, Spain only scored twice from Pedro Rodriguez and Roberto Soldado, and an 88th minute free-kick from Luis Suarez for Uruguay ensured a nervy ending for the reigning world and European champions in Recife.
“At the end of the 90 minutes we were happy to hear the final whistle,” said del Bosque.
“We should have scored more and maybe we were tired and also as a result of winning 2-0, that affects the players, they start to slow down and that is why we suffered at the end.” REUTERS
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1 of 2. Brazilian priest Roberto Fransisco Daniel attends mass at a church in Bauru, 330 km (205 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo, in this April 28, 2013 handout.
Credit: Reuters/Malavolta Jr/Jornal da Cidade/HandoutBy Paulo PradaRIO DE JANEIRO | Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:05pm EDT
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - The Catholic Church has excommunicated a Brazilian priest after he defended homosexuality, open marriage and other practices counter to Church teaching in online videos.
In a statement released late on Monday, the priest's diocese said Father Roberto Francisco Daniel, known to local parishioners as Padre Beto, had "in the name of 'freedom of expression' betrayed the promise of fealty to the Church."
The priest "injured the Church with grave statements counter to the dogma of Catholic faith and morality." The actions amount to "heresy and schism," the statement said, the penalty for which is excommunication, or expulsion from the Church.
The rare punishment follows what Daniel's bishop and the priest himself said were repeated rebukes about the videos and other public activities, such as a radio broadcast and local newspaper column, in which he challenged Church doctrine.
The 47-year-old cleric, who studied theology in Germany, is popular in the southeastern city of Bauru, where he has been a priest since 2001. He is known for his rock T-shirts, a silver stud pierced through his right ear and his habit of posing, as on his official Facebook page, with a glass of beer.
On Facebook and Twitter, Daniel posted a brief statement about the excommunication: "I feel honored to belong to the long list of people who have been murdered and burned alive for thinking and searching for knowledge."
SPREAD OF MODERATE VIEWS
Daniel's excommunication, which prompted headlines across Brazil and protests in social media, illustrates the rising influence of more moderate social views in Brazil, Latin America's biggest country, and much of the rest of the region.
Progressive stances on sexuality, birth control, scientific research and other delicate topics for the Church are increasingly common in Latin America, home to 42 percent of the world's Catholics, more than any other region worldwide.
The shifting views are among the many challenges faced by Pope Francis, an Argentine who ascended in March to become the first Latin American pope in history.
The excommunication comes just two months before Francis is scheduled to attend World Youth Day, expected to attract as many as 2 million young Catholics to Rio de Janeiro.
Though Francis is known to be a traditionalist on social issues and Church doctrine, his appointment raised hopes that the first non-European pope in 13 centuries would do more than his predecessors to modernize Catholicism.
But Daniel's beliefs clearly went too far for church leaders.
In one of the recent videos he posted on YouTube.com and his own Website, the priest said a married person who chose to have an affair, heterosexual or otherwise, would not be unfaithful as long as that person's spouse allowed it. "If someone is in an extramarital relationship and that relationship is accepted by the spouse, then faithfulness still exists there," he said.
A "REBEL SON"
In a telephone interview, Daniel said his statements "are personal reflections that should be considered and discussed in the dialogue of the church." The excommunication, he said, is "the sad act of a lukewarm and disengaged church that is out of touch with today's society."
The diocese retained a church expert in canonical law to oversee the excommunication process. The diocese also initiated a separate process at the Vatican through which Daniel will be stripped of clerical authority.
Last Tuesday, Bishop Caetano Ferrari gave Daniel a letter asking him to take the videos offline and publicly retract his statements. In an interview posted on the diocese Web site shortly afterward, Ferrari called Daniel "brilliant," but characterized him as a "rebel son" who "crosses the line."
On Monday, Daniel said he went to the diocese headquarters planning to renounce his clerical duties rather than retract any of his comments. But before he had a chance, the bishop and canonical expert made him face a committee of Church officials.
"It was a trial," Daniel said. "I told them I was not there to be tried, that I had not been indicted."
Shortly afterward, the Church issued the statement announcing his excommunication.
(Editing by Todd Benson and Cynthia Osterman)
