Brazil wary of Australia threat

Brazil’s bid to win their first FIFA Women’s World Cup begins with a tricky match against Australia on Wednesday.

The Samba Queens – five-times South American champions – have never won the showpiece tournament of women’s football.

The two nations met in the quarter-finals in the 2007 tournament – a match which Brazil won – but the Matildas defeated England in a pre-tournament friendly, raising expectations of a shock result in Group D.

“I am waiting for a big surprise,” Brazil coach Kleiton Lima said.

“The Australian team is the youngest in the tournament. They have a coach (Tom Sermanni) who knows these girls really well.”

“They are very quick, very good technically and have different patterns of play.”

Brazil have not lost an opening game at the tournament and will again be led by star striker Marta, five-times world player of the year.

Conversely, Sermanni could hand World Cup debuts to 13 players over the tournament.

“(Brazil) are an exceptionally good team. Marta is probably the best player in the world – I think everybody would probably agree on that,” Sermanni said.

“They’ve also got a really good balance between players who are match-winners like Marta and some others, and also players that compliment them by being well disciplined and (having) good work rate and things like that.”

“So they are not just about the star players. They’ve got a lot of good balance within the team.”