I stopped by the San José Museum of Art before coming here, and there was a Rufino Tamayo canvas that reminded me of exactly this fixture — vivid, overwhelming colour on one side, and a quiet, dignified resistance on the other. Bruno Guimarães will conduct Brazil's midfield like a symphony, arriving late into spaces Haiti simply cannot track, and Vinícius will be an absolute nightmare down that left channel where Haiti's defensive shape looks most fragile. Haiti's courage is real, but courage alone cannot hold back a tide of this magnitude.

Haiti's defensive shape is admirable in its ambition — they've packed bodies behind the ball and dared Brazil to break them down, which speaks to Jean-Jacques's organized Caribbean pragmatism — but Vinícius Júnior operating in that forward channel is simply a different conversation entirely, and Haiti's sweeper line will be chasing shadows all afternoon. Bruno Guimarães in the engine room means Brazil don't just have flair, they have tempo control, and once that midfield stranglehold takes hold, Haiti's isolated forwards will see virtually nothing of the ball. I tried my hand at a classic San Jose *pan dulce* this week in Santa Clara, and while the results were debatable, I'm considerably more confident in this Brazilian performance — four goals, clean sheet, and a tactical lesson in why elite forward depth wins group stage mismatches.