Mate, What Is Going On With Brazil Football!?
Remember when Brazil was the best footballing nation on the planet? Back in 2002 they strolled to the World Cup title on the back of a legendary team that was built on the attacking trio of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho while their defence was bossed from the flanks by the sheer legends of Cafu and Roberto Carlos. That was a team for the ages, taking Japan and South Korea by storm as they won every game on the way to the final, where a pair of Ronaldo goals saw them overcome a superb German side and lift the trophy.
That was Brazil’s fifth World Cup triumph, standing those lads in the same line as all-timers like Pele, Garrincha, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto, Romario and so many others. But simply winning World Cups isn’t the end of it. No team has ever won a World Cup undeservingly but that doesn’t strictly mean that they were the best team. It takes a certain amount of luck to go all the way, not to mention good timing. The Brazilian side of 1982 is considered one of the finest ever as well but they didn’t win, instead Zico and Socrates and company were stopped 3-2 by Italy, falling prey to that age-old strategy of parking the bus at the back and taking your chances at the other end.
But in many ways that’s the glory of Brazilian footy right there. It’s not about winning (although they usually do), it’s about winning with style. That’s why the world has, every generation, fallen in love with the Brazilian football team. There isn’t a football fan alive who didn’t see a great Brazilian team at some point in their formative years, from Leonidas’ 1938 side that finished third to the brilliant 1950 side that scored 21 goals in 7 games on home soil before being shockingly upset by Uruguay in the final match, to the 1958 and 1962 sides that won it all, the 1970 side that might just be the greatest international team ever, the aforementioned 1982 team and the 1994 champions. And, of course, those 2002 legends.
All the great nations have slumps in between the glory periods, that’s the way it goes. After the West Germans won in 1990, Germany didn’t win a World Cup as a unified nation until 2014 while England are still thanking a Russian linesman for their single trophy back in ’66. Spain were perennial big tournament chokers until they won back to back Euros and a World Cup between 2008-12 as they established not only one of the great eras in international footy but also a genuinely revolutionary one. Italy, meanwhile, seems to come through with a trophy the same way a clock always seems to come back around to 12 and Argentina are never far off themselves. Add in the growing threats in Asia and Africa and world football has never been more competitive. Even still, in 2016 we should be coming close to another top Brazilian side… right?
But we aren’t. Truth be told, they’re not even close. This week the Brazilian team was eliminated from the Copa America Centenario in the group stages – something they haven’t done at the South American champs since 1987. It was as controversial as they came, eliminated with a 1-0 loss to Peru where Peru’s 75th minute winner quite clearly came off of Raul Ruidiaz’s hand. After a long conversation between officials, which went even longer because of all the players trying to get their own words in, the goal was judged to stand and only then did we finally see, via replay, the extent of the shocker. Needless to say, Brazil have their own Wayne Barnes now.
But just as with that case, the referee lynching only disguises the bigger problems. Brazil’s first game of the tournament was a 0-0 draw against Ecuador. The initial bit of weirdness there was in coach Dunga’s claims that he didn’t know where star man Neymar was, only for the Barcelona forward to show up at the game sitting in a luxury box with Justin Bieber. The second was a goal kick being given when it seemed the ball was still on the line, saving keeper Alisson from a howler of a mistake where he fumbled the ball into his own net at the near post. Saved by the officials on that occasion.
In between these two games, they thoroughly dismantled an over-matched Haiti team 7-1, with Liverpool’s Coutinho scoring a lovely hat-trick. Interesting scoreline that: 7-1. As it happens, it was at this tournament that they fielded a starting XI without a single player that started the 2014 World Cup semi-final for the first time since that infamous game.
If you’re wondering why Haiti are even at the Copa America, well, they were invited. This isn’t the typical cyclical event, it’s a one-off designed to mark the centenary of CONMEBOL and it’s being hosted in the USA. They always invite two North or Central American teams to fill out the numbers at Copa America, what with only ten members, but this time they expanded that to 16. The spot at the next Confederations Cup still goes to the 2015 winners, Chile.
Back to Brazil though. If you saw them play, you’ll have noticed a couple of things. One, they aren’t playing that bad. They’re better in defence than they have been recently and they’re holding the ball in midfield much better. But they aren’t scoring goals. Oh, they’re making chances, they just aren’t scoring them. Regardless of the refereeing in the two games, Brazil dominated both Ecuador and Peru and failed to score in either of them – that ain’t right for the Selecao. That ain’t the legacy of Pele and Ronaldo and all those guys.
And here’s where the problems all stem from: There is no Pele or Ronaldo in this team. Not even a Rivaldo or Ronaldinho. Neymar is their best player and not only was he not available for the tournament after Barcelona struck a compromise with them, allowing him to play at the Olympics instead – which players aren’t required to be released for. Except that Neymar is the third best attacking player at his club and despite some tantalising flashes at the last World Cup, we still don’t really know if he can lead the team to glory on his own. To be honest, we shouldn’t ever have to find out because for Brazil to sink into one-man-team territory… that shouldn’t ever have to happen.
Yet the rest of them, well the player turnover since 2014 says it all. Brazil is such a romantically footballing nation that there are foreign pros playing in international teams all over the world, let alone in clubs all over. There are so many good Brazilian players that any coach is going to have a tough job narrowing them down to a squad of names and when the ones that get picked aren’t doing their own job then the pressure is going to be on to chop and change. Hence you have what maybe isn’t the most resilient team out there – losing is an experience to learn from far more than winning is and constant change doesn’t feed into that at all. But then on the other hand that does also mean the coach should comfortably be able to pick a group of players that will fit their system and style. Surely.
Yes, and this is a bugger of a problem too: Dunga simply isn’t much of a coach. The man is a proper icon of the game, he captained them to the 1994 World Cup, but his managerial career is not a flash one. In fact his first stint in the Brazil gig (2006-2010) was his first professional management job and that is already kinda dumb. He did decently, winning games he ought to win and taking the team to the 2007 Copa America as well as the 2009 Confederations Cup. One of the trademarks of his management was how he’d scope all over the place for players, often picking guys playing out of smaller clubs or playing domestically rather than in Europe.
But his Brazilian team lost 2-1 to the Dutch in the 2010 World Cup quarters thanks to a Wes Sneijder double and Dunga was sacked amidst plenty of criticism about those team selections. He then lasted 10 months in a disastrous stint with Internacional in Brazil before strangely being re-hired by Brazil after the 2014 World Cup, which they had hosted and thoroughly expected to win.
They didn’t, though. Wins over Croatia (3-1) and Cameroon (4-1) as well as a scoreless draw with Mexico saw them advance top of their group with Neymar scoring goals and the team looking good for their favourites tag under Luis Felipe Scolari. Into the round of 16, it took penalties to overcome a tough Chile side but overcome them they did, before holding off Colombia 2-1 in the quarters. So far so good. They met Germany in the semis…
There was no Neymar through an injury in the previous game while captain Thiago Silva was suspended. What followed is now considered a national tragedy. The Germans tore them to shreds with their rapid, flowing football as the Brazilian defence suddenly looked like amateurs. Thomas Muller opened the scoring when he slipped the marking of David Luiz and slapped one home in the 11th minute. Miroslav Klose scored in the 23rd minute and then all hell broke loose, a flurry of goals seeing Germany up 5-0 within half an hour of play. Oscar would pull one back right at the very end but Brazil’s 7-1 defeat matched their biggest ever losing margin (6-0 vs Uruguay in 1920) and this on home turf in a World Cup semi final.
Dunga was supposedly meant to rebuild the team after that. He tried. Look at the starting XIs from the Germany loss to the Dunga-guided defeat in the 2015 Copa America quarters (they went down to Paraguay on penalties) to the team that was beaten by Peru recently. The level of change for an international team in the space of only a few years is astonishing. Again, when you have that many players available then that’s always a possibility and a temptation but you don’t create a team identity through constant change.
It’s one thing not to have a genuine transcendent talent but they do have two supremely talented and creative guys out there at two of the biggest clubs in Europa: Neymar and Douglas Costa. For various reasons, neither played in any of these three games.
Dunga, predictably, has since been sacked, along with his entire staff. His second tenure will be remembered for tentative football and poor results. During the last few months of his spell, Dunga had finally caved in and tried to get this team back towards the Brazil we’ve always known though. Initially he’d had them playing on the break more often but that isn’t what these players do best. At the Copa America Centenario we saw a Brazilian side dominating possession, playing it around well in the midfield. Except that they lacked any cutting edge at all. As soon as they met an organised defence (sorry, Haiti), they had no real answers – and they couldn’t even take the chances they did create. Gabriel Barbosa is one of the true up and comers in Brazil, a future star perhaps, but he’s usually played out wide for his club team Santos.
There was also Jonas, who has done well recently for Benfica and Hulk (a 72nd minute sub vs Peru), for all his goals in Portugal and Russia. Between those three strikers they have 17 international goals in 64 international games (mostly thanks to Hulk’s 48/12). Neymar, meanwhile, has 46 goals in 70 games. You can’t count on the reincarnated Garrincha strolling into camp tomorrow but Brazil cannot seem to produce a proper centre forward either. Not one that can top the charts in a major European league. And when Neymar doesn’t play, they don’t seem to be able to score goals at all. Just imagine the carnage they could unleash if Neymar had a Ronaldo to play off of.
They do have Real Madrid’s Casemiro, one of the heroes of that Champions League victory (who was suspended for Peru). They also have genuine attacking ability in Liverpool’s Coutinho and Firmino – the former played all 90 vs Peru while the latter was surprisingly left out of the squad after a fine season with the Reds. Willian and Oscar are options from Chelsea. Fernando and Fernandinho of Manchester City. Dani Alves of many trophy-laden seasons with Barcelona. Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, Lucas Moura, Maxwell and *shudders* David Luiz all play for PSG. This list could go on and on, any nation in the world would beg for this kind of depth. Unfortunately Dunga seemed to have no idea what his best team was. Compare that to Argentina or Germany or Spain where you can probably name at least eight guaranteed starters and each one of them currently leaves Brazil in their dust. Almost two years on from 7-1 and they haven’t gotten better.
Replacing Dunga should see a more positive style of footy but then as with all stuttering teams, you also have to look deeper. Brazil FA president Marco Polo Del Nero has had two separate leaves of absence in the last year and can’t travel with the team after being implicated in the FIFA corruption scandal. There were furious protests about the country spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hosting the World Cup when so many millions of people are living in poverty. The Brazilian team was once the holy icon that inspired the masses and now it’s mostly disillusionment. It’s pretty messy.
And the worry is that it can still get a whole lot worse. The Olympics now take a massive spotlight, Dunga was meant to be in charge there so whoever takes over is going to be immediately busy and immediately under pressure. Not just there either, because a third of the way through qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, Brazil find themselves in sixth place and sitting outside of qualification places. The top four go through automatically, fifth place plays off with the winner of the Oceanian conference (come on New Zealand!). Remember Brazil has never missed a World Cup…