“This is not the first time that the national team will be directed by a foreigner. I would like it to be a Brazilian, but he already has a range with our country, knows well. He won’t feel a stranger.”
Carlos Alberto Parreira, 82, Brazil’s coach in winning the four-time championship at the US-1994 Cup, thus answered a question by reporter Klaus Richmond, in an interview with this Sheetif Italian Carlo Ancelotti, 65, was the best choice for the position.
In fact, it will not be unprecedented for a stranger to direct the Brazilian team. It happened three times, the first one hundred years ago (Uruguayan Ramón Platero), the second in 1944 (the Portuguese Joreca), the third in 1965 (Argentine Filpo Núñez).
However, their passage was brief or lightning. Platero, within a month and a half, headed the national team in six matches (four officers by the South American and two non-official, friendly against clubs). Joreca, in three days, divided the function with Flávio Costa into two friendly. Núñez was a single game (friendly).
Ancelotti is likely to become the foreigner for longer, and with more games ahead of the national selected. For the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, there are four matches left to Brazil. Classifying, as expected, three more friendly will be enough, later this year, for the Italian to become a record holder.
Note that Platero, Joreca and Núñez had identification with Brazil before occupying the position in the selection. They lived here, commanded teams from the country. Ancelotti’s link with Brazil is none.
I researched how many times Ancelotti was in Brazil, whether for work, whether tourism/leisure. None. I can’t assure you with 100% certainty, but if you passed by, no one knows, no one saw. Or, if anyone knows or saw, did not register or disclose.
If my research does not have holes-if I have, I will be happy to know-on Monday (26), when landing in Rio de Janeiro to summon the selection, it will be the first time that Ancelotti will tread the Brazilian soil.
Certainly, unlike what Parreira said, he will feel a stranger. Which is normal when faced with a different place, with a different people. Contrary to what Parreira said, its rapport with our country does not exist. It’s zero. He knows nothing here, except the Brazilian players he worked with … in Europe.
The Italian, will be spoken, will live in Rio. Wonderful but violent and insecure city. Being there, if you have the courage to go around, you will receive the cordiality of the cariocas, who will call you Carleto (with the characteristic “erre” of the carioques), and you can even learn in everyday life to speak Portuguese … if you start work well.
Well we know that bad results, which usually come allies with poor football, make the person coach non grateful, quickly. It can have a supercurriculum (Ancelotti has), be polite (Ancelotti is), playing good-foot (Ancelotti playing), it is no use. It becomes unable.
Then there will be questions about his (lack of) identity with Brazil. There will be a doubt: we should not have put it, or should we not put again, a Brazilian, as he preferred Parreira? (We should = CBF, who decides.)
We should not, and we should not, for lack of qualified option. Post-Tite attempts (Ramon Menezes, Fernando Diniz and Dorival Júnior) did not work, and there is no confidence for home tests.
The acceptable exit was a foreigner, and the good. Ancelotti, strange that he is to Brazil and Brazil is to him, fits into the profile. It is missing “only” to create rapport with the country.
Let’s see. Ancelotti is experienced, but not from Brazil. And, as the late Tom Jobim said, Brazil is not for beginners.
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