Brazil v Ivory Coast

TEAM NEWS

Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba will return to the starting line-up following his return from an arm injury and will take the place of Aruna Dindane. Drogba came off the bench against Portugal just 11 days after breaking a bone in his arm.
Brazil will name the same team that beat North Korea in their opening match. Goalkeeper Julio Cesar is set to win his 50th cap.
One booking from suspension: Ramires (Brazil) & Ronaldo (Portugal).

MATCH PREVIEW

The trouble with managing Brazil is that merely winning matches is not good enough, its how you win them that matters. The Brazilian press require no encouragement to crank up their feud with Dunga and they were quick to lambast his side's lacklustre performance in beating North Korea in their opening match. Pre-World Cup predictions that the Selecao are lacking the players with the flair and invention to break down teams seemed to ring true at Ellis Park.
One of Dunga's biggest worries continue to centre on the form of Kaka. He flitted around for 77 minutes against the Koreans, but looked a shadow of the player that won the 2007 World Footballer of the Year award. Fortunately Robinho impressed and the seven chances he created was the most by any player in the opening round of matches.
As for the Ivory Coast, they are ready to unleash their Drog of War. Their captain, Didier Drogba, starts the match as his miraculous recovery from a broken arm continues. They were neat and tidy against Portugal and their defence, that has kept eight clean sheets in their last 16 matches, had few problems shackling Cristiano Ronaldo.
The players have praised the impact coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, has had on the organisation of the team: "We are so happy to get Eriksson as our manager because now when we play we are more solid and more compact," said Emmanuel Eboue.

MATCH STATS

Head-to-head
- Taking into account games played by West Germany, plus those by the Yugoslavia or Serbia and Montenegro this is the seventh time they have met at the World Cup. As a result, this becomes the joint most-played fixture at the World Cup along with Brazil v Sweden. Germany lead by four wins to one.
- Overall, this is the sides' 28th meeting and Germany lead by 16 wins to seven. The last time Germany lost this fixture was in May 1973.

Brazil
- Maicon had 129 touches against North Korea, which was the most by a player in the first round of matches.
- Brazil have won 23 of their 24 matches against African opposition, scoring 65 goals and conceding just seven. Their only loss was a 1-0 defeat to Nigeria at the 2003 Confederations Cup.
- They have never lost a World Cup game to a side outside Europe or South America.
- Brazil have lost just one of their last 27 internationals (v Bolivia).

Ivory Coast
- Ivory Coast scored an average of 3.2 goals per game with Didier Drogba in their side in the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup, compared to 1.9 goals per game without him.
- The Ivory Coast have kept eight clean sheets in their last 16 competitive matches

MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee Stephane Lannoy (France)
Assistants Eric Dansault and Laurent Ugo (France)
Fourth official Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh (Malaysia)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/matches/match_29/default.stm

what's up with some of these teams (Ivory Coast/Cameroon) painting their shirts on?

 Brazil are carving them up. So much for the African teams doing good at this tourny.

Fifa will see the incident and ban the Ivory coast player for a couple of games like they did with Rivaldo in 2002.

Hmm i actually agree with the decision. He didnt give him a red...it was just a yellow. And he DID give him a stupid elbow. The player did absolutely dive etc,but the ref gave it right...If he really bought into the dive he'd have given a straight red.

Nah i 100% disagree. He just fended the player away, something which you would do waiting for a corner, or a free kick.

The deciding factor here was the lollipop dive.