A lot of you likely saw or heard of what happened last week? Brazil had two WCQ games, home against Colombia and away against Argentina.
They won the first one 2-1, with Vinicius scoring the second goal near injury time, in a hard-fought game which is always the case when you play the dirty and physical Colombia team. Then there was the away game to Argentina, and while we know this would be a very difficult game, something - completed unplanned - made it a lot worse. On an interview with Romario on his podcast, the former almost baited Raphina to say trashy things about Argentina - which would help boost his show - and Raphina fell for it. In response to Romario's question, Raphina replied:
"“We’ll beat them… definitely! We’ll beat them hard—on and off the pitch, if we have to. I’ll score a goal. I’ll do everything I can.”"
Here is part of the interview.
View: https://youtu.be/sF4VNaYWxxw
With the game a day or so later, Raphinha’s comments quickly went viral, sparking backlash from Argentine fans and players. Local media called his remarks "threatening" and "harsh," intensifying the South American rivalry. However, Raphinha failed to back up his words. During the actual game, he had no shots on target, touched the ball only 35 times, and had a 64% pass accuracy in 90 minutes, contributing little to Brazil's performance. After the match, Argentina’s players taunted Raphinha about his comments, and tensions flared. The frustrated winger had to be restrained by teammates to prevent a confrontation. Oh, and the match finished 4-1 for Argentina, and could have gone 5 or more....
Needless to say, Brazil is in a serious crisis and an all-time low. Been fan of Brazil since 1987, and following them closely since 1993, and while they have had some crisis in the past like in 1993 and 2001 WCQ - ironically in both instances , they come back to win the WC the year after - this is the lowest of the lowest. First off, and while they are in a better position now, they were at one point of the qualifiers at the risk of missing the world cup, even though South America has an extra seat, for total of 6 spots. Not only that, but since Tite was let go after the last world cup, Brazil has gone through 3 terrible coach, with each proving to be worst than the one before: Ramon Menezes, Fernando Diniz and now with this clueless idiot Dorival Junior.
All of them have proven to be not only clueless and not up to date with modern football, all three have something against proper midfield and got into the habit of fielding what amounts to a 4-2-4 formation, letting other teams overwhelm Brazil's weak and undermanned midfield. For example, for these two qualifiers, Dorival called on 4 midfieldrs only, while calling on double the number of forwards, even though two of these midfield players were a yellow card away from getting suspended for the next game. Well guess what happened in the game against Colombia? Brazil's arguably best midfield player, Bruno Guimaraes of Newcastle United, got a second yellow, which means he would be out in the game against Argentina. This in addition to Alisson getting in a head-collision with a Colombian player resulting into a concussion and ruling him out of the next game. And if that wasn't enough, Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes, also got a yellow and was out against Argentina. Needless to say, starting Brazil's clueless coach, then Raphina's comments, and the 3 suspensions/replacements, and Brazil went from bad to worse, and Argentina currently being in their best form, took advantage of this and gave Brazil a beating.
This was apparently the tipping points for not just the fans but the corrupt and incompetent CBF and gave Dorival the boot. If you are keeping count, and as mentioned above, this is Brazil's third coach in 3 years since the beginning of 2023! And to give you an idea how bad things are, there is very little chance another Brazilian coach will take the job, since they have proven to be very bad at the job. In fact, there was a small chance it would be given to a Brazilian: either call Tite back which I don't agree with since he was given two world cup cycles and failed to advance past the QF or the new young coach Filipe Luis whom I very much like but think he is still young and need more time. So now the choice is between Italian Ancelotti or Portuguese Jorge Jesus, who is currently coaching in Saudi Arabia, but did coach Flamengo in Brazil and has been a coach for 35 years now.
I have been one of those traditionalists, that refused the idea of a non-Brazilian to coach the Brazilian NT: you are telling me, in the land of football, where the country not only produces some of the best players, but exports thousands of players aboard, you can't come up with one decent coach? Well, it is sad, but the land that gave us such legendary coaching names like Tele Santana, Mario Zagallo, Carlos Alberto Pereira, Luis Felipe Scolari and others, has had its coaching pipe go completely dry, with barely any of the of the recently retiring legends of the last 20 years going into coaching. Contrast that with the likes of Spain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, who are producing new coaches by the dozens. In fact, do you want to hear a shocking stat? In South America, 8 out of 10 coaches are Argentinians, with only Brazil and Bolivia being the exception! The CBF have done a miserable job of having a system in place to train, develop and graduate new coaches. In fact, even when you do have new coach, they are quickly chased away by the miserable Brazilian clubs atmosphere, where the fans are very demanding, and the ownership and management even worse, where a revolving door policy ensures no coach stays on the job for more than max of 1-2 seasons. No other place on earth has such short leash on coaches and enormous pressure to perform. And of course, and this is not to generalize, but Brazilians have developed this culture of being lazy and wanting to retire into an easy life on the beach, than to take on a demanding job like coaching, even if it pays a lucrative salary.
Oh, I am not done, as there was another development in recent weeks, which really put the icing on the cake: Ronaldo went for the presidency of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) to give Brazilian football a fresh boost. But he pulled out because he didn’t have enough support from the regional federations. He mentioned that 23 out of 27 federations were backing the current president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, which left him with little chance to make his move. And want to know how Brazil has been doing under this other idiot (no, not the coach, but the CBF president)? Take a look here, the record and numbers will shock you!
- First loss to Uruguay in 22 years
- First loss ever to Colombia in qualifiers
- First loss ever at home in qualifiers
- Worst defeat in qualifier history (4-1 Argentina)
- Worst defeat to Argentina since 1964
- Worst qualifier campaign ever- Worst Seleção year (2023) since 1940
- Quarter-final Copa América elimination
- U-20 World Cup elimination to ISRAEL
- U-17 World Cup elimination to Argentina (3-0)
- Worst ever loss at youth level (6-0 Argentina)
- Failed to qualify to the Summer Olympics
- Fastest women’s World Cup exit since 1995
View: https://x.com/GingaBonitoHub/status/1904938607854707168
Anyway, I really hope we will see the sun again after gloomy last few years and that Brazil will come out of this stronger, since we still have some great names and upcoming young players
I will now leave you with this article from the NYT about the current mess that Brazil is in, if what I presented to you above is not bad enough...
www.nytimes.com
They won the first one 2-1, with Vinicius scoring the second goal near injury time, in a hard-fought game which is always the case when you play the dirty and physical Colombia team. Then there was the away game to Argentina, and while we know this would be a very difficult game, something - completed unplanned - made it a lot worse. On an interview with Romario on his podcast, the former almost baited Raphina to say trashy things about Argentina - which would help boost his show - and Raphina fell for it. In response to Romario's question, Raphina replied:
"“We’ll beat them… definitely! We’ll beat them hard—on and off the pitch, if we have to. I’ll score a goal. I’ll do everything I can.”"
Here is part of the interview.
With the game a day or so later, Raphinha’s comments quickly went viral, sparking backlash from Argentine fans and players. Local media called his remarks "threatening" and "harsh," intensifying the South American rivalry. However, Raphinha failed to back up his words. During the actual game, he had no shots on target, touched the ball only 35 times, and had a 64% pass accuracy in 90 minutes, contributing little to Brazil's performance. After the match, Argentina’s players taunted Raphinha about his comments, and tensions flared. The frustrated winger had to be restrained by teammates to prevent a confrontation. Oh, and the match finished 4-1 for Argentina, and could have gone 5 or more....
Needless to say, Brazil is in a serious crisis and an all-time low. Been fan of Brazil since 1987, and following them closely since 1993, and while they have had some crisis in the past like in 1993 and 2001 WCQ - ironically in both instances , they come back to win the WC the year after - this is the lowest of the lowest. First off, and while they are in a better position now, they were at one point of the qualifiers at the risk of missing the world cup, even though South America has an extra seat, for total of 6 spots. Not only that, but since Tite was let go after the last world cup, Brazil has gone through 3 terrible coach, with each proving to be worst than the one before: Ramon Menezes, Fernando Diniz and now with this clueless idiot Dorival Junior.
All of them have proven to be not only clueless and not up to date with modern football, all three have something against proper midfield and got into the habit of fielding what amounts to a 4-2-4 formation, letting other teams overwhelm Brazil's weak and undermanned midfield. For example, for these two qualifiers, Dorival called on 4 midfieldrs only, while calling on double the number of forwards, even though two of these midfield players were a yellow card away from getting suspended for the next game. Well guess what happened in the game against Colombia? Brazil's arguably best midfield player, Bruno Guimaraes of Newcastle United, got a second yellow, which means he would be out in the game against Argentina. This in addition to Alisson getting in a head-collision with a Colombian player resulting into a concussion and ruling him out of the next game. And if that wasn't enough, Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes, also got a yellow and was out against Argentina. Needless to say, starting Brazil's clueless coach, then Raphina's comments, and the 3 suspensions/replacements, and Brazil went from bad to worse, and Argentina currently being in their best form, took advantage of this and gave Brazil a beating.
This was apparently the tipping points for not just the fans but the corrupt and incompetent CBF and gave Dorival the boot. If you are keeping count, and as mentioned above, this is Brazil's third coach in 3 years since the beginning of 2023! And to give you an idea how bad things are, there is very little chance another Brazilian coach will take the job, since they have proven to be very bad at the job. In fact, there was a small chance it would be given to a Brazilian: either call Tite back which I don't agree with since he was given two world cup cycles and failed to advance past the QF or the new young coach Filipe Luis whom I very much like but think he is still young and need more time. So now the choice is between Italian Ancelotti or Portuguese Jorge Jesus, who is currently coaching in Saudi Arabia, but did coach Flamengo in Brazil and has been a coach for 35 years now.
I have been one of those traditionalists, that refused the idea of a non-Brazilian to coach the Brazilian NT: you are telling me, in the land of football, where the country not only produces some of the best players, but exports thousands of players aboard, you can't come up with one decent coach? Well, it is sad, but the land that gave us such legendary coaching names like Tele Santana, Mario Zagallo, Carlos Alberto Pereira, Luis Felipe Scolari and others, has had its coaching pipe go completely dry, with barely any of the of the recently retiring legends of the last 20 years going into coaching. Contrast that with the likes of Spain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, who are producing new coaches by the dozens. In fact, do you want to hear a shocking stat? In South America, 8 out of 10 coaches are Argentinians, with only Brazil and Bolivia being the exception! The CBF have done a miserable job of having a system in place to train, develop and graduate new coaches. In fact, even when you do have new coach, they are quickly chased away by the miserable Brazilian clubs atmosphere, where the fans are very demanding, and the ownership and management even worse, where a revolving door policy ensures no coach stays on the job for more than max of 1-2 seasons. No other place on earth has such short leash on coaches and enormous pressure to perform. And of course, and this is not to generalize, but Brazilians have developed this culture of being lazy and wanting to retire into an easy life on the beach, than to take on a demanding job like coaching, even if it pays a lucrative salary.
Oh, I am not done, as there was another development in recent weeks, which really put the icing on the cake: Ronaldo went for the presidency of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) to give Brazilian football a fresh boost. But he pulled out because he didn’t have enough support from the regional federations. He mentioned that 23 out of 27 federations were backing the current president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, which left him with little chance to make his move. And want to know how Brazil has been doing under this other idiot (no, not the coach, but the CBF president)? Take a look here, the record and numbers will shock you!
- First loss to Uruguay in 22 years
- First loss ever to Colombia in qualifiers
- First loss ever at home in qualifiers
- Worst defeat in qualifier history (4-1 Argentina)
- Worst defeat to Argentina since 1964
- Worst qualifier campaign ever- Worst Seleção year (2023) since 1940
- Quarter-final Copa América elimination
- U-20 World Cup elimination to ISRAEL
- U-17 World Cup elimination to Argentina (3-0)
- Worst ever loss at youth level (6-0 Argentina)
- Failed to qualify to the Summer Olympics
- Fastest women’s World Cup exit since 1995
View: https://x.com/GingaBonitoHub/status/1904938607854707168
Anyway, I really hope we will see the sun again after gloomy last few years and that Brazil will come out of this stronger, since we still have some great names and upcoming young players
I will now leave you with this article from the NYT about the current mess that Brazil is in, if what I presented to you above is not bad enough...
Brazil are a mess. What will it take to fix them?
The Totally Football Show discuss the turmoil surrounding the Brazilian FA and the nation's lack of top-class coaches.
www.nytimes.com
