MONTEVIDEO • Last season was a turbulent one for Arthur Melo. The 24-year-old breached La Liga coronavirus protocols, was caught drink driving and refused to take part in Barcelona’s Champions League preparations so as to force a transfer to Juventus.
His antics hastened his €72 million (S$114.7 million) move to the Italian champions in the summer, with Miralem Pjanic heading the other way but it also meant being overlooked by Brazil coach Tite.
However, with Casemiro absent after testing positive for Covid-19 nearly two weeks ago, Arthur earned a recall on Tuesday.
The 24-year-old midfielder marked his first Selecao appearance of the year with his maiden international goal, setting Brazil on their way to a 2-0 World Cup qualifying victory over Uruguay.
Arthur’s opener was fortunate as it took a deflection that wrong-footed Martin Campana, but the stroke of luck helped ease the nerves of a side missing free-scoring Neymar.
Everton forward Richarlison added a second on the stroke of half-time as the visitors inflicted only the second defeat in 32 home games – both times by Brazil – for Uruguay, who could not call on Covid-hit Luis Suarez and had Edinson Cavani sent off late on.
While the hosts will count themselves unfortunate after hitting the woodwork twice and having a goal disallowed, Tite’s men now have four wins in as many games, ensuring they remain on top of the standings to qualify for Qatar 2022, while Uruguay are fifth.
Arthur later claimed Brazil deserved the hard-fought win but urged his teammates not to get cocky over their 100 per cent record. “There is always room for improvement,” he said. “We are not getting arrogant because we’re unbeaten.
“We know that every game is difficult and every game different but we are on the right path. Not because we’ve won but because sometimes, we’ve been playing well.
“We are on the right path, we have total faith in the coaches and they have faith in us and so we’ll keep looking to achieve our objective, which is to qualify for the World Cup finals.
“I think we were rewarded with the win because we went after it more than they did.”
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2 Uruguay’s 2-0 loss to Brazil in the South American World Cup qualifiers was only their second in 32 home games. The other was a 4-1 defeat, also by Brazil in March 2017.
Arch-rivals Argentina also remained within touching distance after a 2-0 away win over Peru to leave them second and two points behind Brazil (12).
La Albiceleste were unlucky not to score more in a dominant display, with Stuttgart’s Nicolas Gonzalez and fellow strike partner Lautaro Martinez of Inter Milan getting on the scoresheet.
Skipper and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi was pleased with their incisive attack, saying: “From the very start, we played a great game, the goals came and we created lots of chances.
“Happy with the victory, we needed it after the game we played the other day (last week’s 1-1 home draw with Paraguay).”
The South American World Cup qualifiers resume next March.
REUTERS