Brazil’s football culture lives on the fine line between realism and fantasy. Just as we Brazilians live between euphoria and depression, we heard before facing Morocco that the rival would be difficult. After the 1 x 1 draw, disagreement with the performance.
There are two reasons for the poor performance: the mistakes of Carlo Ancelotti’s team; the opponent’s hits.
Not everyone remembers this all the time, but every football game has this factor, almost something new: the opponent!
Morocco was a semi-finalist in the 2022 World Cup. And Brazil did not prepare well in these four years.
Spain, yes. But they drew 0-0 with Cape Verde. Despite the performance of goalkeeper Vozinha, the Spanish did not imagine drawing in their debut.
In the last 24 years, the Spanish shaped the new culture of the game and Brazil went off track. However, in the five World Cups after the penta, the Brazilian was the only team present in all the quarterfinals. Spain only reached the top eight once, precisely when they were champions (2010).
Wednesdays are very few for us. And for Spain, one title, three round of 16 and one elimination in the group stage?
The renewal of powers happens in all sports. Volleyball was dominated by Asians and Eastern Europe until the end of the 1970s. Brazil had no difficulty assimilating when Poland, Bulgaria and Japan lost relevance and the silver and gold generations reached three consecutive Olympic semi-finals.
Now, France is a two-time men’s Olympic champion. Before, there wasn’t even bronze. Brazil, a powerhouse, came 17th in last year’s Volleyball World Cup, its worst campaign ever.
Two weeks after that fiasco, Ancelotti lost in Japan — it was the first turnaround from 2-0 to 2-3 in 111 years of selection. A friend touched me and said: “What a shame!” I replied that Japan was a strong opponent. He joked. I asked about the volleyball result. I didn’t even know.
Football has this power to make all eyes turn to it. In Brazil then…
Just like in volleyball, France is the model to be followed. Not that it’s unbeatable. They were eliminated in the group stage in 2010 and in the quarterfinals in 2014, but the ability to hone players using the National Football Center in Clairefontaine makes the French candidates for the title for the third time in a row. For the present, not for history.
Brazil needs to return to being a producer of the culture of the game, of training methods, of training coaches, of mining athletes.
It could be much higher than it is today.
But our inability to analyze also gets in the way. Drawing with Morocco playing poorly is not positive nor is it the end of times. Remember the 2016 Olympics. It started with draws against South Africa and Iraq, ended with celebration in a victory over Germany, two years after the 7 x 1.
The Germans, a model to be followed after causing the biggest embarrassment in Brazilian history, fell in the group stage in the following two World Cups.
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Brazil needs to play better against Haiti and Scotland, try to reach the semifinals and understand that everything is not ok. He won’t even be if he’s world champion.
The team remains among the strongest. But calm down! There’s always an opponent.
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