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Can Roberto Firmino fire Brazil into the Copa America semi-finals?

Can Roberto Firmino fire Brazil into the Copa America semi-finals?
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Rob Parker
 @ June 25th, 2019

Hosts Brazil face Paraguay in their Copa America quarter-final tie in the early hours of Friday morning UK time.

Liverpool striker Roberto Firmino is set to lead the line for the Selecao once again and will be aiming to fire his nation into the last-four.

The Reds star opened his account at the tournament with a goal in the 5-0 demolition of Peru in Brazil’s final group game.

Firmino, aged 27, closed down an attempted clearance from the Peru keeper, then put the ball into the net with a cheeky no-look finish.

He will be hoping to use that fortuitous goal as a platform to add to his 11 goals for his country.

At the other end of the pitch, his Liverpool club-mate Alisson Becker will be aiming to keep Paraguay at bay. The goalkeeper is yet to concede in the competition, keeping three clean sheets in the three group games against Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru.

Watch the Liverpool pair in action

If you want to watch the Liverpool duo in action to see if they can help Brazil reach the semi-finals, you will need to stay up late or get up very early. The match kicks off at 1.30pm, so you might choose to stream coverage of the game over one of your devices from the comfort of your bed. If you’re wondering ‘how does live football streaming work?’ or you’re unfamiliar with watching football on a computer or mobile device, you might prefer more traditional viewing methods.

If so, you can watch the game on Premier Sports 1, a pay television channel that holds the UK broadcast rights for Copa America. You will find Premier Sports 1 on channel 412 on Sky or channel 551 on Virgin Media.

Will Brazil progress to the semi-finals?

Brazil are definitely the hot favourites going into this match. Opponents Paraguay have scraped in the last-eight without winning a single match to day. The drew 2-2 with Paraguay and 1-1 with Argentina, before losing 1-0 to Colombia last time out.

The hosts are 1/8 odds on to win this one in normal time with the bookmakers. Paraguay are at 19/1 – the longest odds of any team to win their quarter-final tie.

Firmino is among the favourites to get on the scoresheet. You can get odds of 3/1 on his scoring either the first goal or the last goal, and odds of 10/11 on him scoring anytime during the game. Only Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus has shorter odds.

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