Brazil vs Mexico: Neymar stars as Selecao march into World Cup quarter-finals

Brazil 2-0 Mexico: Neymar added the flourishes as the five-time winners booked their place in the last eight

A rock, and hard pace - that’s what Brazil get you between, and that’s what may yet get them a sixth World Cup. Those core qualities combined have already got them a place in the quarter-finals after this highly calculated and sophisticated 2-0 win over Mexico, even if the game will also bring more hysterical discussion about Neymar. For once, though, that could be concentrating on the wrong thing. Because, for once, too, the Brazilian star showed a maturity in actual play to match the gradual growth in his team over this World Cup.

Neymar has come to be the overwhelmingly dominant figurehead of this Brazilian side to the point goalscorers like Roberto Firmino here now celebrate his assist rather than the other way round but - finally, and maybe ominously for everyone else - he also showed a cutting edge and stripped-down efficiency that topped off the cutting edge and stripped-down efficiency of his team.

That’s what is now really standing out about Brazil. That was how they picked off Mexico.

After Tite’s defence had so intelligently held off the perpetually frustrated central Americans for so much of the game, Neymar then showed real intelligence to his play to actually beat them.

Even the flourish of the backheel that brought the opening goal was for once absolutely the right option to take rather than mere embellishment, as it similarly opened the space for Willian and allowed Neymar himself to finish.

You could say it should be a lesson to him that this is the benefit of actually trusting in and passing to your teammates - right down to the fact he even got to score himself - but it seems to have sunk in.

Other lessons haven’t. Neymar still got himself into another eye-rolling incident as he so obviously exaggerated the pain from Miguel Layun stepping on his foot, but there was still intent and the Mexican was still lucky to stay on.

Mexico as a whole were meanwhile unlucky to be playing a Neymar and a Brazil that were able to maintain such laser focus even after such pantomime distractions.

That was how the second goal came, and that was how the last-16 game was won.

Neymar slid home Brazil's opener (EPA)

Brazil brilliantly used Mexico’s best qualities against them, as they lent on the rope-a-dope of what may be the World Cup’s best defence. That could be their best quality.

It was obvious from the start that - at the very least - the Mexico from the German game rather than the Sweden game turned up here. It was also obvious - particularly from both of those games - that so much of the good of the side is based on energy and that energy is far from limitless. So, while Mexico pressed and hassled and made life very difficult for Brazil in the early stages, they were already beginning to wane in the intense Samara heat by the half-hour.

There was also another concern. For all of the ball that Mexico had and all the runs that troubled stand-in right-back Fagner, they didn’t actually create any proper chances. Carlo Vela blazed one long-range effort wide, Hirving Lozano had one shot blocked.

This illustrated one huge positive of the Brazil team, and it is nothing to do with going forward. It is to do with their defensive positioning.

It was Neymar's best performance of the tournament (REUTERS)

It is so good that, even though their approach allows spells where they give up the ball and the space and can look under pressure, they don’t actually give up many chances.

That gives them the confidence to patiently wait and counter, aware that the opposition are wasting energy while not even wasting chances, as Brazil can create superior chances. This was summed up on 25 minutes when Neymar delivered the type of quality that can still not be overlooked despite all his antics, slipping the Mexican defence with one swivel, or then when Gabriel Jesus created space for himself - when he might have gone down - and fired at Guillermo Ochoa.

Edson Alvarez meanwhile had to produce the type of brilliant challenge on Neymar that was somewhat reminiscent of that by Bobby Moore on his namesake Edson Arantes Di Nascimento in 1970.

Brazil are in the last eight (AFP/Getty Images)

It was just that something had by then already changed in the game. Mexico were still trying the same things but without the same energy, while Brazil were now going into overdrive.

That was precisely what happened for the precious opening goal, as Willian overlapped, Neymar finally fed a teammate and was then able to get on the end of the winger’s drilled cross-shot.

​Mexico by then couldn’t manufacture anything like the same space, and their attacking just degenerated into enthusiastic if entirely innocent drives at the Brazilian box, before realising there was little on and trying a speculative shot that sailed into the stand.

Roberto Firmino added a late second (AFP/Getty Images)

This, it should be noted, was also down to Brazil’s really special quality and what might yet elevate them above everyone else. Tite has ingrained into this team a sixth sense for defensive positioning, something that will allow them to go an awful long way when combined with the fundamental quality of their front four.

This was never better illustrated than for the clinching second goal, after Neymar had been allowed run a long way from another rock-solid defensive movement, before Firmino finished with ease.

It shouldn’t be overlooked either that, when required, there was proper power to go with the positioning. On around 80 minutes, as Lozano looked to jink his way in, the by-then more assured Fagner put in a solid block to again wear Mexican enthusiasm and optimism down just that bit more - and embolden Brazil.

When the right-back got up, he immediately and vigorously high-fived his teammates, in a manner itself reminiscent of Giorgio Chiellini and Gigi Buffon.

That is supposed to be the type of old-fashioned defending that is no longer being coached in western Europe, but it has already been brilliantly displayed by Uruguay in this World Cup and may well have been mastered by Brazil.

This may well be their greatest quality, despite the talents of Neymar. It is the foundation that allows so much flourish. It may well be the foundation of another World Cup win.