I have always wondered about the following, and coincidentally read the following relevant post online and decided to ask the question:
“Gabby went to Inter Milan but never played, then returned to Brazil to achieve:
League top scorer x2
Libertadores top scorer x2
Pedro went to Fiorentina but never played, then returned to Brazil to achieve:
Libertadores top scorer
Cup top scorer
Paulinho went to Bayer Leverkusen and hardly played, then returned to Brazil to achieve: League top scorer”
First off, there is no denying that Brazilian league is way behind top 5 European leagues, at least on tactics, player development and coaching etc. I am not here to argue otherwise.
And we often hear examples of Brazilian players who went to Europe and failed or didn’t live up to hype. But let us back a bit and reverse this: what if we were to send some of Europe’s or world top talent to Brazilian league: would most succeed or would the ratio of success/failure be the same as that is Brazilians going to Europe.
In other words, there is much more to the story than the said players not being good enough for La Liga, EPL etc. could it be that there is something called culture shock which disproportionately affects Brazilians. Yes, if you are a great player (e.g Romario, Ronaldo, Neymar) could play anywhere and they would still be great.
And yes, we do have examples of foreign players who played in Europe and then came to Brazilian league and did great but the sample size is very small.
So it works both ways, we just don’t have enough sample size for the ones going the other way, but a big sample size for those golf from Brazil to Europe.
“Gabby went to Inter Milan but never played, then returned to Brazil to achieve:
League top scorer x2
Libertadores top scorer x2
Pedro went to Fiorentina but never played, then returned to Brazil to achieve:
Libertadores top scorer
Cup top scorer
Paulinho went to Bayer Leverkusen and hardly played, then returned to Brazil to achieve: League top scorer”
First off, there is no denying that Brazilian league is way behind top 5 European leagues, at least on tactics, player development and coaching etc. I am not here to argue otherwise.
And we often hear examples of Brazilian players who went to Europe and failed or didn’t live up to hype. But let us back a bit and reverse this: what if we were to send some of Europe’s or world top talent to Brazilian league: would most succeed or would the ratio of success/failure be the same as that is Brazilians going to Europe.
In other words, there is much more to the story than the said players not being good enough for La Liga, EPL etc. could it be that there is something called culture shock which disproportionately affects Brazilians. Yes, if you are a great player (e.g Romario, Ronaldo, Neymar) could play anywhere and they would still be great.
And yes, we do have examples of foreign players who played in Europe and then came to Brazilian league and did great but the sample size is very small.
So it works both ways, we just don’t have enough sample size for the ones going the other way, but a big sample size for those golf from Brazil to Europe.