Juninho (centre) - fears England and Germany (Allsport)

By David Anderson, PA Sport, in Suwon

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Juninho claims Brazil can win the World Cup and that England and Germany are their biggest rivals.

The former Middlesbrough star feels Brazil are showing the form of champions after they cruised through to a second-round meeting in Kobe on Monday against the runners-up of Group H with a 100% record.

Brazil could meet England in the quarter-finals and Juninho admires the way Sven Goran Eriksson's side are playing.

"The most important thing was to win the group," said Juninho. "Now we've done that I think we can go all the way. We have the mentality to win it.

"I think this is a World Cup for everyone. I think Brazil are favourites, but I think you can also say that of England and Germany.

"We've shown in each game that we're getting better and we're getting more confident.

"We're very strong in all areas and we're playing very well at the right time.

"When we have the ball we play very fast and so we create a lot of goalscoring opportunities.

"We know, though, that there are a lot of difficult games ahead. We're happy to go through to the second round, but we've not won anything yet."

Unlike Juninho, coach Luiz Felipe Scolari was at pains to talk down Brazil's chances.

He left it to others to say who the favourites were and he was troubled by their defending.

Scolari knows if Costa Rica had shown more composure in front of goal, then the Group C game could easily have finished 5-5.

"We understand why people say we're favourites, but we don't consider ourselves as such," he said.

"We're taking it step by step and this is a great start for us.

"But this was only the first phase. Now we start in the second phase where every game is decisive.

"I will show my players the last 15 minutes of this match and the first 15 minutes to show them the mistakes they made.

"If my players would defend the way I tell them in the practice sessions we would be okay.

"But we are showing some problems at the moment. We're making mistakes and we're giving chances to the opposition. We're aware of it and we're working on it."