10 World Cup Questions: Brazil

Agree with most of what my fellow Brazilian Duvel says, except I think our best player right now is Maicon. Kaka’s current form worries me. Thank goodness Luis Fabiano is back from injury and playing regularly, and scoring goals for Sevilla.

The LB position remains a mystery. There’s always Marcelo at RMadrid, of course (I know, I know). No name really stands out as a great choice.

As to Brazil winning it, they’re the most likely winner as no European team wins outside Europe. Except that no winner of the Confederations Cup has ever gone on to win the world cup either.

Should be a very interesting tournament, I think we’ll get a few surprises.

Kaka has not played in a couple of months, currently with a groin injury which most likely won’t go away unless he has surgery….shake off some of that ego and include Ronaldinho in your WC team.

Sorry, but this guy who writes the Brazil blog doesn’t know a thing about brazilian football.

1. Who is Brazil’s best player?
RONALDINHO. Basically he is the guy that can give magical passes and make life easy and pleasing to any forward player that happens to be in any team (like he does to Pato, Boriello etc in Milan and like he did with Eto etc in Barça). He is the most creative player in the Brazilian Football for the last ten years but he is not going to the World Cup because Dunga preferes to have Kléberson. Or Josué. Or that other guy I can not even remember the name. Luís Fabiano is going to miss him. Brazil and the world are gonna miss him enormously.

2. What do you think of your coach?
DUNGA IS A CREEP. A lucky one. In Copa America 2007, Argentina was playing masterful football and Brazil was playing the worst football you can think of. Somehow Brazil made it to the final and beat Argentina. Same goes for Copa das Confederações 2009. Brazil was crap and would loose to the USA but somehow they had some lucky strike and won. The team plays a non-Brazilian, boring, defensive football style that is enerving and disgraceful. Yes, Dunga deserves credit for destroying Brazilian Football like Parreira did in 1994.

3. What do you think of Brazil’s World Cup 2010 kits?
WHAT?

4. What is Brazil’s biggest strength?
RONALDINHO, NEYMAR, GANSO AND MANY MORE. Brazil’s strenght is the quality of its players. The thing uis that Dunga is not calling them for the World Cup, so Brazil biggest strenght is going to be LUCK. Brazil was lucky enough to win Copa America 2007 over a much much superior Argentina and to win Copa das Confederações 2009 without facing the much much superior Spain.

5. …and biggest weakness?
DUNGA. He is a fraud. KAKA. He is an ego-driven fraud. Left back? Call Maxwell. This is a no brainer. But is seems that Dunga has got no brains at all

6. If you could steal one player from any other World Cup 2010 team, then who would it be and why?
MESSI.

7. Tell us one thing about the Brazil team that the rest of the world might not know…
BRAZIL COULD FLY AND BE MAGIC. BUT IT WON’T BE. If Telê Santana was alive, or if Dorival Jr. was the coach, we could have an authentic brazilian team that would play attacking football 9and not the coward Bolivia-like game that Dunga team plays). Brazil does not need Dunga cowardness nor Kaka ego-driven stuff. Brazil has enough players to have a magic team.

Goalkeepers: 1 – Julio Cesar (Rogerio Ceni)
Center-Back: 3 – Juan (Miranda)
Center-Back: 4 – Tiago Silva (Lúcio)
Right-Back: 2 – Maicon (Léo Moura)
Left-back: 6 – Maxwell (Marcelo)
Mid-field: 5 – Dani Alves (Hernanes)
Mid-field: 8 – Ramirez (Elano)
Mid-field: 10 – Ronaldinho (Marlos)
Mid-field: 11 – Paulo Henrique Ganso (Júlio Batista)
Attack: 7 – Neymar (Robinho)
Attack: 9 – Luís Fabiano (Grafite)

8. What would you consider success/failure for Brazil at World Cup 2010?
With this Dunga-coward team, winning or losing is a failure. Because you can win being coward. Remember Brazil 1994? That was a win, and that was coward, and that was a failure. Huge one.

9. What are you most excited about at World Cup 2010?
MESSI. Argentina. Spain.

10. Who do you think will win World Cup 2010?
If Kaka and Dunga get sick and get out of the WC, Brazil may win. But this won’t happen, so Spain and Argentina will dominate.

I agree with some of Luciano’s points.. Dunga’s current squad it too ‘Efficient’ :). I’d love to see some of the old flowing exciting futebal back.

Agree with most of this, especially the part about Kaka’s fitness being the key. Brazil basically got knocked out in 06 because Kaka picked up a bad knee injury against Ghana (courtesy of Muntari – One of the dirtiest players in the game). Ronaldinho would be a good insurance policy for this very reason.

“Sorry, but this guy who writes the Brazil blog doesn’t know a thing about brazilian football.”

lol, calling Brasil’s victories at the Copa America, Confederations Cup, and World Cup Qualifying “Luck” suggests that you don’t know anything about football, period.

So pathetic this luciano guy. You really know nothing about football. How could you rely your world cup team on two inexperience guys Neymar and Paulo Henrique huh!? And you have no respect to blogger you can comment here but please do not criticize. If you are so good go write your own blog.

Yeah Luciano, I think Dunga should call up Maxwell, he’s been playing very well for Barcelona.

1 – Nosso melhor jogador é o Luis Fabiano
2 – Dunga foi um bom jogador. É um treinador que tem medo de arriscar.
3 – O uniforme é bonito, o feio é ter que jogar com o shorts branco.
4 – Maicon e Daniel Alves representam!
5 – Roberto Carlos. Aposto nele.
6 – O Messi não joga bem na Seleção Argentina, se ele não for o destaque um outro possivel pode ser uma surpresa. Que tal Tevez?
7 – O resto do mundo precisa ver o Neymar e o Dentinho, o Dunga vai deixar passar batido esses moleques.
8 – Um vice-campeonato já considero um sucesso. Vamos ganhar em 2014.
9 – O que mais excita é ela acontecer na Afrika do Sur.
10 – Argentina, Italia, Espanha ou Brasil. Nesta ordem.

Luciano has just singlehandedly skyrocketed my respect for Brazilian fans (at least the ones that agree with the most vital points he makes about winning with ugly football and such).

But I already knew that about them…it’s the same with Argentinian fans. I’m hoping for an Argentina-Holland final. But the QF with Brazil should be exciting as well. Go light a fire under Dunga’s ass or put some extra spice in his food, maybe that will change his approach and try a bit more flair.

Ronaldinho on the wing/midleft, Kaka in the middle (nr.10), Fabiano in front of that. I don’t see the problem.

I love when Brazil fans call other Brazil fans idiots then try to wax poetic about beautiful football, and try to justify it all in the name of Tele Santana’s memory. And by “love” I mean I think I think it’s tacky and somewhat asinine.

For those of you waxing nostalgic about Ronaldinho and his showmanship and flair, get over it. He’s not going to be in South Africa.

Though he has spurts of genius still, let’s not recall the 2006 World Cup was supposed to be “his” and we all know how that turned out.

Yes, he’s still skillful and fun to watch… at Milan.

As for ‘jogo bonito’ and all that history, I feel your pain. But Dunga only wants to win the sixth trophy. Let’s hope he does.

Then you recall his success and eviscerate the next in-line…

Apelidado:

Respostas interesantes.

“1 – Nosso melhor jogador é o Luis Fabiano” — concordo que e’ uns dos melhores, mas acho que o Maicon impate com ele

“2 – Dunga foi um bom jogador. É um treinador que tem medo de arriscar.”

Exatamente.

“3 – O uniforme é bonito, o feio é ter que jogar com o shorts branco.”

Concordo plenamente! O short branco e’ uma farca!

“4 – Maicon e Daniel Alves representam!” – amen!

“5 – Roberto Carlos. Aposto nele.” — gostaria de concordar, sempre amei o Beto, mas nao acho que podemos apostar mais nele.

“6 – O Messi não joga bem na Seleção Argentina, se ele não for o destaque um outro possivel pode ser uma surpresa. Que tal Tevez?”

So que o Tevez tambem nao joga bem na Seleção Argentina. Sao dois jogadores de primeira classe mas nao estao sendo bem utilizados na selecao nacional.

“7 – O resto do mundo precisa ver o Neymar e o Dentinho, o Dunga vai deixar passar batido esses moleques.” – ja vi os dois, sao excelentes, concordo, mas o Dunga nao concorda, infelizmente

“8 – Um vice-campeonato já considero um sucesso. Vamos ganhar em 2014.”

Em 2014, tenho medo da praga do Maracana. O final sera em Maracana e o time de casa naquele estadio sempre tem mal sorte em torneios importantes.

“9 – O que mais excita é ela acontecer na Afrika do Sur.” – sim, claro

“10 – Argentina, Italia, Espanha ou Brasil. Nesta ordem.”

Nao concordo que a Italia tera muito sucesso na Afrika do Sul.

I get the impression Luciano might support Argentina…

It’ll be a shame if a hernia keeps Kaka out of the World Cup. He’s a brilliant player, much better than Robinho. One of the laziest, most arrogant and overrated players ever to touch a football.

Luciano is a fool. Duvel, on the other hand, knows what he’s talking about.

“Ronaldinho is not going, Brasil will not win without him,”

We didn’t win with him in 2006 either.

Despite Dinho’s flaws, I’d love to see Dunga call him up — not just him but Pato and Diego too. We need more creative options in midfield.

But Dunga prefers a team that’s more pragmatic and banal. He takes no risks. So far he’s done well with that approach. But it might be his downfall at the world cup.

Am I the only person who likes Brazil’s away strip?…To the extent that I bought myself one.

1. Who is Brazil’s best player?
I agree that Kaka is our best player – but I don’t think that he is necessarily THE cog in our counter attack. I think both him and Elano and Ramires are as important in that respect. Globo had a statistic that Elano had assisted on about 40% of our goals. Combined that with Robinho and I think both either scored or assisted on 70% of the goals. Very good numbers.
2. What do you think of your coach?
Dunga is an intelligent, pragmatic, and stubborn coach. I think for a coach of his limited experience, he is a tactical genius. And honestly, of the national team coaches, he may be the best when it comes to tactical knowhow. He knows exactly the right team to start – the right substitutions (Elano or Ramires? When do you bring on Alves? Etc.). His style can be beautiful when it has to. I don’t mind the way we play because let’s be real. I’m 26 and this is all I’ve seen. Conservative tactics and a solid defense always win out in today’s World Cup. I do agree that some of Dunga’s selections are questionable – particularly Baptista and Kleberson as of late — and even Adriano.
3. What do you think of Brazil’s World Cup 2010 kits?
The home jersey is nothing special. And I actually like the blue jersey – yes I don’t mind the dots. However, I wish we would return to the traditional blue and white away jersey – as opposed to blue and yellow.
4. What is Brazil’s biggest strength?
The entire back line – including Julio Cesar. It’s the best in the World Cup. If we win it all – it will be because of Lucio, Juan, Maicon, and especially Julio Cesar. If you look at the past World Cup winners – and those who make it to the semifinals – pretty much always – they have a keeper who is playing out of his mind – Buffon, Barthez, Marcos, Kahn, Taffarel, Rustu, Ravelli, Pagliuca. Brazil will need Julio Cesar to bring his stellar play to South Africa. Their defense plays well and doesnt make idiotic errors — Roberto Carlos fixing his sock, etc.
5. …and biggest weakness?
We don’t have a substitute for Kaka. Part of that is Dunga’s fault in not trying out more guys. I wish Carlos Eduardo was given more of a chance. The same with Alex from Fenerbahce. Ganso, Cleiton Xavier, Diego Souza. If we don’t win the World Cup – it’s not going to be because we only had an average left-back – Gilberto Silva tends to cover the left anyways. We already have a great defense for the most part. But not having another creative option is a mistake – and I’m not even thinking about Ronaldinho, who hasn’t played well for Brazil in years.
6. If you could steal one player from any other World Cup 2010 team, then who would it be and why?
I like Messi – but like Ronaldinho, I think he is a player who probably wouldn’t really shine for Brazil – especially if we have Kaka and Robinho on the field. For me – it would be Xavi or Iniesta – arguably the two best midfielders in the world. We need a link between the defense and our forwards. Kaka is already there, but he is more offensive. A player like Xavi or Iniesta would do wonders to our team. This is why many pundits in Brazil were calling on Hernanes to be brought to the team about a year or two ago.
7. Tell us one thing about the Brazil team that the rest of the world might not know…
Elano is more important to the team than you think. He is one of the best passers in the world – his crosses are deadly from free kicks – and we score a lot of goals that way.
8. What would you consider success/failure for Brazil at World Cup 2010?
We have to win. Simple.
9. What are you most excited about at World Cup 2010?
I want to see how the competition will be. Will Maradona be able to fix Argentina in time? Can Spain’s key players return to full form? Which England will show up?
10. Who do you think will win World Cup 2010?
Brazil will win. I am more confident than ever – and I feel that in the past 4 years, I have come to understand the nuances of the game. This Brazil team may not have a true superstar (outside of a Kaka when healthy) – but it is a TEAM. These guys have been playing regularly for years. They know each other well. They have the experience. I am confident.

Hello again guys.

Thanks for your comments on my post.

I have been painfully watching Dunga’s team for the last 4 years.

Dunga is not your typical Brazilian coach. He does not follow the steps of Brazil’s great coachs such as Telê Santana.

He has a coward approach. He takes no risks.

And yes, that will be Dunga’s (and, unfortunatelly, Brazil’s) downfall in WC!

Because you can only have so much luck!

Did you really see Dunga’s team on Copa America 2007? It was awful. Really. On the opposite hand, Argentina, led by the erratic Riquelme, was playing an incredible football. Brazil barely made past Uruguai in the semifinals (it was only on penalty kicks). In the final against Argentina, Brazil was lucky enough to score early and then somehow managed to win playing a terrible deffensive football and scoring on counter attacks.

It was LUCK, believe me. If Brazil had played against Argentina 10 times on that day, it would have lost 9 times and won just that one time.

Now let me tell you, it is OK for Bolivia to play coward football like that, it is OK even for Italy, but for Brazil it is such a shame.

It is like having a Ferrari and instead using a broken car to go on a race or something like that.

Brazil has a tremendous amount of fine players that could play real effective offensive collective football (like Barcelona does for som many years! like Santos is doing in 2010!) but Dunga is unable to make that happen. He can only make these medium-level players play deffensive coward football!

Dunga is afraid/unable to pick the players that have the ultimate skills and abilities. And he is unable to make these talented players play like a cohesive unit (such as happened in 1970 and 1982, such as Barça and Santos, such as Telê Santana’s São Paulo in 1992-1993).

Ronaldinho, the best brazilian player in the last 2 decades, will miss the WC because Dunga doesn’t like him. Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-aLOFB9gns and you will understand: the video shows a 17 year-old unknown Ronaldinho destroying Dunga in South Brazil most important derby in 1990-something. Two weeks after this game (or something like that) Dunga retired from professional football out of embarassment! Ever since then he hates Ronaldinho with a passion.

To make matters worse, Dunga is afraid to take Santos wonderkids Neymar and Ganso!

This “Dunga way” of playing football is nothing fresh. Parreira did the same in 1994. This is old news. Dunga is not breaking any fresh ground. He is being a coward, playing deffensive riks-free football.

So yeah, I’ll be rooting for teams that play attacking football in the WC.

Shame on you Dunga!

I enjoy reading the comments from fellow Brazilians. Victor’s and Luciano’s posts made great reading.

I’m somewhere in the middle, I sympathize with them both, I agree with a lot of what they say, I can see both sides to the argument. There’s a lot I respect about Dunga but he also frustrates the hell out of me. I respect his refusal to kowtow to big name stars, his insistence on players willing to die for the shirt, his use of little known players, his willingness to bring in players from the domestic game. (Tho he doesn’t do that enuf, there are several good players in Brazil he could include in the squad).

I don’t think we should expect any Brazilian team to go back to the days of Tele Santana, I think Dunga’s right about that. Football has moved on and teams that play like that get slaughtered. (I’m a gooner, I know the pain of watching my team’s beautiful football get destroyed regularly).

However, I think Luciano has a point. Dunga goes too far in the other direction, he’s too pragmatic, too risk-averse. He ignores too much rich talent available to a Brazilian national team manager. Victor’s point about too much reliance on Kaka (and Robinho to a lesser extent) is spot-on. It’s incredibly frustrating to see a Brazilian team with so few creative options, when we clearly have available some excellent creative players both in Europe and in Brazil. Victor and Luciano have already named some of them.

What if Kaka gets injured or can’t get out of his bad form right now?

I also applaud Victor for bringing up ELANO — the most underrated player in our team. Just because he failed in England, he’s dismissed by English/European pundits. Elano has been absolutely essential to Dunga’s success. He’s not flashy but he’s a terrific influence on the pitch with a great attitude. And he comes up with some great goals.

I do disagree with Luciano, however, that it was only “luck” that allowed Brazil to beat Argentina in the Copa America final. Yes, Argentina played brilliantly throughout the tournament, while Brazil played poorly.

But Brazil went out with a deliberate game plan to frustrate and choke Argentina in disciplined, cohesive fashion – the way Inter did two nights ago against Barca. Brazil were brutal in that game, committing 37 fouls. Argentina simply had no answer to it.

I sympathize with those who lament that kind of football, I didn’t like watching a Brazilian team playing like that either. But the success you get from it is not luck – it’s the result of a well thought out, disciplined, focused, determined strategy and set of tactics. Brazil earned their victory on that day. Mourinho’s win v. Barca was not due to luck either–it was earned.

However, you CAN say that it was purely out of luck that Brazil got to the final in the first place. Brazil got past Uruguay in the semifinal only from a penalty shoot-out in which our keeper, Doni, blatantly jumped quite far from his line to make a save. The referee allowed it. The best team on the pitch on that day was Uruguay, not Brazil.

I just wanted to clarify…the reason I put Kaka as the best player is because I felt he was the most important. I agree a player like Maicon is more highly rated these days. However, if you go back a look at the matches in 2008 without Kaka the team struggled big time, going three matches at home in a row without scoring. This includes a crapfest in Rio against Bolivia.

You are right sandrahn. Your point is great. I see what you mean.

Brazil had a game plan to beat Argentina on that final.

But I still think it took some very very big amount of luck for Brazil to win on that day. It was 0 x 0. Elano made the best pass of his life to Julio Batista. It was a very long shoot from Brazil’s defense field if I am not mistaken. This pass went right to Julio Batista feet. It was a genius Ronaldinho-like pass. Elano had never done anything like that in his entire life and he won’t do it ever again. It was a once in a lifetime pass.

Julio Batista also did a great drible and scored with a great kick, something he is not used doing. From that point on, Brazil went to the deffense and did these 35 fauls which was a horrendous thing to do. Even with that anti-football attitude, Riquelme almost scored. And if he had, Brazil would be lost!

Also, you couldn’t have said better about Brazil x Uruguai. It was just as you described.

And I have to say I disagree 100% when you say: “I don’t think we should expect any Brazilian team to go back to the days of Tele Santana, I think Dunga’s right about that. Football has moved on and teams that play like that get slaughtered.”

Have you ever watched Barcelona? Have you ever watched Santos? Wow, they play collective attacking football in the best effective way and they do win! Of course they may lose here and there, but losing is part of the game! Thing is they aim for the goal, they play football, their game is great, they love to win, they want to win and many times they do!

About Arsenal, I am sorry to say, but those kids can’t really be effective. They can be flashy sometimes but there is something missing there. I think they could use some older players maybe. Like 2 or 3 older guys, like Ronaldinho and Riquelme. Ronnie should leave Milan because that team is horrible!

Kaka is an ego-driven person. Very few people know this, but after the first Brazil game in WC 2006, Kaka was chosen the “best player” (just because he scored) and he gave an interview saying something like this:

- I am so happy because I played so well and I am just disapointed because the team didn’t play well.

Since that interview is in portuguese, the world doesnt know about it! That interview alone created havoc inside the Seleção. Kaká had badtalked his own team-mates to the press in the world’s biggest stage AND he talked good things about himself! That was pathetic!

And the brazilian press likes Kaka so much that they didn’t even realized how ridiculous and stupid were his comments! Ever since that day it is pretty clear that Kaka is an ego-driven maniac and he cares way more about himself than about the team!

So you have Dunga and Kaka leading the team?

It is sickening!

Quote: “I sympathize with those who lament that kind of football, I didn’t like watching a Brazilian team playing like that either. But the success you get from it is not luck – it’s the result of a well thought out, disciplined, focused, determined strategy and set of tactics. Brazil earned their victory on that day. Mourinho’s win v. Barca was not due to luck either–it was earned.”

*****

Well said. I agree. Especially including the “I didn’t like watching a Brazilian team playing like that either”. I kind of liked it better seeing Inter do it, cause it’s more their (Italian) style and it just suits them so well. As long as you don’t overdo it and add some Total Football flair to it, which Mourinho is doing with Inter for example.

From Sao Paulo, Brasil. Brazil has a very solid team defense and midfield. The training tactics Dunga seeks to avoid the ball comes to his defense. So, Robinho (or Nilmar, your reservation) is so important to mark the departure of the opponent’s ball. With the ball, Brazil is the prevailing skill and speed of their strikers. It is deadly in counter-attacks. Dunga does not want to change the group of players who played in the World Cup qualifiers. It turns out that the fans want the convening of the new stars of Santos FC, who are Paul Henry Goose and Neymar. PHG is very fast, skillful and cerebral. In some moves, do the fans think of great midfielders of the past, like Socrates and Rivelino. Neymar is very fast and is easy to score goals. It’s like Robinho, but with a better kick. Roberto Carlos is also quoted by fans as it is in great physical shape at age 37 and returned to play well at Corinthians, a team with great fans. Dunga resist, because it was much attacked by the press when the team was going badly. Therefore, at the World Cup wait for a Brazil that hardly takes goals, with strong pressing without the ball and deadly with the ball with his quick and skillful players. It’s very strong contender for the title.