HOUSTON
\nBrazil survived a World Cup last-32 scare when they fought back to beat Japan 2-1 after Gabriel Martinelli squeezed in a shot at the far post deep in stoppage time on Monday.
\nBrazil, who will next face Norway or Ivory Coast in New Jersey on Sunday, improved after the break with Japan taking an early lead and shackling the attack of the five-times champions for much of the opening period.
\nMartinelli\u2019s winner in the 95th minute came at the end of a tense match and was the latest winning goal in normal time of a World Cup knockout game since 1966. Brazil players and staff hugged each other on the pitch after the match as the Japanese players watched on in disbelief.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t explain how I feel,\u201d Martinelli said. \u201cIt\u2019ll only really sink in a while. Thank God I managed to score the goal today. I\u2019m so happy for the team, who gave it their all. I\u2019m lost for words.\u201d
\nJapan\u2019s Kaishu Sano stunned Brazil after 29 minutes when he intercepted Danilo\u2019s misplaced pass before driving toward goal and rifling a shot past goalkeeper Alisson Becker to send the outnumbered Samurai Blue fans into delirium.
\nJapan put on a first-half defensive masterclass as they sucked up pressure with defenders flying around the pitch, breaking up passes and closing down space any time a Brazilian player had the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOUSTON Brazil survived a World Cup last-32 scare when they fought back to beat Japan 2-1 after Gabriel Martinelli squeezed in a shot at the far post deep in stoppage time on Monday. Brazil, who will next face Norway or Ivory Coast in New Jersey on Sunday, improved after the break with Japan taking an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99684,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99674\/revisions\/99684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}