Brazil Manager Tite Defends Neymar After Frustrating Afternoon Against Costa Rica

Brazil manager Tite has backed his star player Neymar following another difficult World Cup afternoon. The Selecao ran out 2-0 winners against Costa Rica on Friday afternoon, but were made to wait until the 90th minute before finding the back of the net.

Neymar did eventually score, six minutes after Philippe Coutinho managed to finally beat an in form Keylor Navas between the sticks for Brazil's opponents. However, with much of his side's attacking presence going through the PSG forward, it was an overall uninspiring day from the winger.

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But Brazil boss Tite has jumped to his defence, reminding people that Neymar has only just come back from a three and a half month injury layoff.

“[Neymar’s] individuality shows up if the whole group is playing well,” Tite said, via the Guardian. 

“You can’t put all the responsibility on one player. He was out three and a half months and he played the full match. He’s a human being. He needs some time to resume his high standard but before he does that there is a team which has to be strong and not dependent on him.”

Neymar was handed a penalty around 15 minutes from full time during the match - a decision that was then overturned by VAR, and Brazil were handed a foul against them for the forward diving, but Tite doesn't seem to care too much about the decision to overrule it.

“If I was the referee I would not go back but I respect that because it is subject to interpretation.

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“We don’t need referees to win the game, we just want it to be fair. To me it was a penalty. But we don’t want any help. We don’t need any help, the players don’t need help, I don’t want help. We want to be more competent.”