Brazil easily overcame the United States in their final second-round match at the FIFA Futsal World Championship Chinese Taipei 2004. The win sees the Auriverde take first place in Group F.

"We came into the game without any pressure on us" acknowledged Ferretti after the encounter. "I wanted to use it as an opportunity to show some of my fringe players that they haven't come here for nothing. We may have let in five goals, but I'm not too bothered about that. Now, we are going to focus 100% on continuing our progress without any hitches.

Just as they usually do, the Brazilians hit the ground running. With only a few seconds on the clock, Falcão let fire with a rocket that missed the top corner of the American goal by a matter of millimetres.

Ferretti's flyers comfortably maintained their opening momentum, and by the eleven-minute mark, their dominance had reaped considerable reward. Strikes from Falcão (1-0, 5'), Fininho (2-0, 9'), then Manoel Tobias (3-0, 11') put the Seleçao firmly in control, and although Steve Butcher took advantage of momentary carelessness in the Brazilian defence to reduce the deficit (3-1, 12'), the half-time score line was a fitting representation of Brazil's superiority.

Mayhem in the last two minutes
Although not quite reduced to the role of mere spectators, it is nonetheless fair to say that the Americans were one step behind their opponents in every respect. Even when Ferretti took the opportunity to rotate his squad somewhat after the break, it made little difference, as first Falcão (4-1, 25') , then Pablo (5-1, 26'), made the group's top spot safe.

Towards the end of the game, the pace understandably slowed, as the Brazilians sought to conserve energy for the tournament's home straight and the already eliminated Americans became increasingly demoralised by the obvious gulf in class. As a result, there was little for the crowd to write home about, but all that changed with the exception of a horrendous blunder from Brazil's substitute goalkeeper, When the US cleared up field, Lavoisier went to return it, but slipped and could only watch in horror as the ball rolled gently into the net. The goal was awarded to the American midfielder John Ball (5-2, 32').

But the game was already set on an implacable course towards another Brazilian victory. Pat White briefly narrowed the deficit (5-3, 34') before Schumacher (6-3, 37') restored the Auriverde's advantage. This was the cue for Keith Tozer to liven up the last few minutes by sending his goalkeeper forward to lend weight to his attack. Courtesy of this cavalier approach, the Americans managed to force first one goal (Torres, 6-4, 38'), then two (Beasley, 6-5, 39'), only to see them immediately cancelled out by an Indio brace (7-5, 39' ; 8-5, 40'). When the final whistle sounded moments later, Brazil went through to claim their rightful place among the four best futsal teams in the world.

"This Brazil side play the finest futsal I've ever seen," admitted Keith Tozer after the game. "I think we've showed again that although our futsal could improve from a technical perspective, our teams can compete with the best of them. I can't be happy with the result, because we wanted to show we could win it tonight. However, I am happy to have offered the public such an entertaining final show."