The Athletic is providing live coverage of the Brazil-Norway match in the 2026 FIFA World Cup playoffs.
Casemiro’s performance against Japan was a microcosm of his last three seasons at club level.
A forgettable first half revealed the 34-year-old’s diminishing mobility on the biggest stage after the Japanese repeatedly outnumbered him with energy as they burst through the midfield. There were calls at half-time for him to be replaced, but an injury to Lucas Paqueta meant Carlo Ancelotti had to reshuffle his squad differently.
Deciding to keep his number five on the field, the head coach of the Brazilian national team made a subtle tactical adjustment, thanks to which Endrick entered the game and brought Matheus Cunha further to the left flank, which revealed the attacking prowess of Vinicius Junior.
However, none of Brazil’s talented forwards sparked the comeback with a goal at NRG Stadium in Houston.
It was Casemiro.
From ridicule to delight in a single day, Casemiro continues to defy suggestions that he can no longer perform at the highest level.
His trophy-laden career shows he has nothing left to prove, but there can be no room for sentimentality given how unforgiving international football is.
Goal-scoring ability is a plus, but his main job is to hold the center of the field. Think of it like a mechanic breaking down your car and then whipping up a fantastic carbonara – great, but that’s not really what he’s there for.
With Brazil’s upcoming match against Norway set to be another physical test in the scorching New Jersey heat, will Casemiro be a help or a hindrance for his team?
Casemiro’s decline in form at Manchester United was so severe that he was left out of Brazil’s 2024 Copa America squad under previous coach Dorival Junior. It was only after Ancelotti’s appointment as coach in 2025 that the midfielder returned to the squad after a year’s absence.
You can see why. Give Casemiro time and space in possession and he can anchor the midfield with the same ease with which he helped Real Madrid to five Champions League wins – two under Ancelotti.
In front of the centre-back pairing of Gabriel and Marquinhos, he remains an important part of his team’s build-up. As shown in his player panel against Japan below, his actions are replete with passes left and right, as well as defensive moves scattered throughout his own half to protect Brazil’s penalty area.
The issue surrounding Casemiro centered on his effectiveness without the ball.
Nobody loves tackles more than the Brazil international: his 13 ‘real tackles’ (including tackles, committed fouls and losses) per 1,000 opposition touches was more than any other Premier League central midfielder last season.
This shows how much he loves to act, but his tendency to go down to earth so often means that these problems are not always resolved. In a warning sign against Japan, Casemiro was yellow-carded in the 14th minute for a clumsy foul on the edge of the area.
Looking back at this sequence, Brazil have good defensive numbers and there is no need to outplay anyone – but a lazy tackle from behind results in a free kick in the danger area.
That may have made him think twice when Japan opened the scoring through Kaishu Sano. An intercepted pass allowed the Japanese midfielder to cut past Casemiro through midfield and score from range.
It’s easy to say after the fact, but Casemiro would have been better off defending space (black arrow) rather than approaching the player with his front foot (yellow arrow). With three Japanese players around him, the decision to immediately engage in battle at such a transitional moment was the wrong one.
That pair of decisive moves determined the course of the first half, but Casemiro needed just 10 minutes to restore the balance after the break.
Having taken a higher starting position, the 34-year-old should have scored earlier in the second half after slipping into the box and seeing his header cleared off the line by Takehiro Tomiyasu. A few minutes later he ran unmarked to the back post and he met Gabriel’s cross with a great chance to get ahead of Zion Suzuki.
This was no accident. Casemiro’s timing and precision on the ball have been the theme of his season at Manchester United, with his eight Premier League headed goals the most of any player in Europe’s top five leagues in the 2025-26 season.
Many of those goals came in dead-ball situations, helped by record-breaking Bruno Fernandes, but with set pieces especially important during international knockout football, Casemiro’s aerial prowess alone would be worth keeping him in the team.
“Casemiro is a leader,” Ancelotti said in support of his midfielder after the game against Japan.
“He knows his position very well, how to play his position. Nobody teaches him how he should play his role. That’s very important.”
Casemiro was able to withstand performances against poor Haiti and Scotland in Brazil’s two group stage matches, but Morocco provided much stiffer resistance, revealing some worrying holes in the midfield.
Morocco constantly found a substitute when passing the ball down the field. As shown below, Casemiro was caught off guard in his first duel and woefully out of position as he attempted to defend the vacated space.
Morocco were able to open up space easily in the first half.
Here’s another example in the first 45 minutes when Brazil’s midfield moves to the near side to compact the space around Morocco. However, Nussair Mazraoui dodges Casemiro’s challenge too easily before Bilal El Hannouss releases Achraf Hakimi at the other end.
Once again, Brazil’s midfield retreats quickly towards their goal as Morocco surges ahead.
To some extent, Casemiro did not receive help from those around him. Ancelotti’s use of Bruno Guimarães and Paqueta in midfield did not allow him to achieve the necessary balance of defensive training with physical strength and energy.
This means that Casemiro often remains isolated in the middle, creating additional tension in Brazil which has a cascading effect when players are pulled out of position.
This was the case in Morocco’s first match, where Casemiro looked at two players at once while his teammates failed to clear the pass in front of him. The shutdown of neither Moroccan player left him in no man’s land, allowing Brahim Diaz to fire the ball through the heart of Brazil’s defense for Ismael Saibary to score.
Looking at the wider squad at Ancelotti’s disposal, there is no outstanding candidate to replace Casemiro if he is rotated on Sunday.
The fact that 32-year-old Fabinho was looked after from the bench speaks for itself, but the youth profiles of Danilo Santos and Ederson do provide alternatives who would deserve more minutes in the United States.
Don Carlo has a knack for making good decisions in the dugout, but even he admits Casemiro was lucky to turn his performance around against Japan.
He felt like the solution and the problem for Brazil in this World Cup.