Brazil arrive at MetLife Stadium on Saturday night carrying the weight of expectation they always carry, and yet the opening fixture of Group C offers a sharper reminder than most that reputation counts for nothing when the whistle goes. Morocco are not here to make up the numbers.
The group itself, which also contains Haiti and Scotland, looks manageable enough on paper for the two heavyweights who meet first. But the logic of tournament football is straightforward: win here and you set the tempo for everything that follows; drop points and you spend the next fortnight looking over your shoulder. With all four sides level on zero points and zero goals, there is no margin yet, only opportunity.
Morocco's credentials at this level no longer require much explanation. Their only previous meeting with Brazil on record ended 2-1 to the Moroccans, a result in Rabat on 25 March 2023 that announced, loudly, that Atlas Lions football had moved well beyond the romantic underdog phase. That victory was no fluke, and Brazil's squad will know it.
For Brazil, this is familiar territory in one sense: they have appeared at every World Cup since the competition's inception and carry five titles into the tournament. The pressure of that history is as permanent as the yellow shirt. What has changed is the wider landscape of international football, in which African and Middle Eastern sides compete with a tactical sophistication that makes the old continental hierarchies look increasingly quaint.
Both squads report no fresh absences, so each manager will have a full complement to choose from heading into the MetLife cauldron. That will only sharpen the tactical interest, because Morocco under their current setup are not a side that simply absorbs pressure and counterattacks. They press with structure, defend with numbers, and have shown they can hurt teams of any pedigree.
The data leans in a direction that will raise eyebrows in Rio and Santiago. The predictive model gives Brazil no probability of winning and splits the remaining chances evenly, 50 per cent for a draw and 50 per cent for a Moroccan victory. Whether that reflects genuine parity or simply the model's memory of recent form is a reasonable question. What is not reasonable to dispute is that Morocco, on the evidence available, deserve to be taken seriously as favourites to leave New Jersey with something. Brazil, for once, may be the side doing the chasing.