Whenever summer tournaments roll around, plenty of attention invariably falls upon Brazil. Decked out in their iconic yellow shirts, big-time football simply wouldn’t be the same without them.
Whether it’s a World Cup — the Selecao are record five-time winners of FIFA’s flagship event — or a Copa America, Brazil are a permanent fixture in any discussion about potential winners.
However, heading into the 2024 Copa America, they are afforded this position on historical reputation and lingering fondness around the footballing world. People love the idea of Brazil. The reality has been a little more prosaic for some time.
“[The Brazilian national team] is much more respected outside our country than it is here, I can tell you that,” head coach Dorival Junior told The Guardian in March. “People have no idea how much Brazilian football is talked about outside our country.
“I had the chance to talk to players, managers and coaches abroad who always showed great respect and admiration for Brazilian football. This doesn’t happen back home. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is in our country.”
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Dorival was speaking before his first game in charge when an experimental Brazil side beat England 1-0 at Wembley. A thrilling 3-3 draw against Spain in Madrid followed, while a last-gasp 3-2 win over Mexico had them in high spirits heading into their final Copa warm-up match against the United States. That game ended in a 1-1 draw that was celebrated far more loudly by the Copa America hosts.
However, events in the 18 months preceding this upturn had the world’s most famous international team lurching close to crisis and there is still damage to repair.
How good are Brazil? Carlo Ancelotti confusion still lingers
Losses to high-quality European teams at every World Cup since their most recent success in 2002 were reflective of both Brazil’s relative fall from grace and the reality of Europe’s financial dominance of modern football. This, in turn, has strained the Selecao’s relationship with its public.
“Like it or not, football’s development means that our best players have all been out of Brazil for a long time,” Dorival said. “To give you an idea, there are now around 1,500 to 1,600 Brazilian players outside the country and this has been going on for more than 10 years.
“That way you lose the identity as well as a bit of that closeness. You realise that a few players are very distant. That is not their fault but regardless of the results for the national team they won’t be back in the country the following week. Maybe they don’t understand what’s going on in our country because when they leave they’ll immediately have to turn their attention to their clubs abroad. So, I think that all of this has led to a great deal of mistrust on everyone’s part.”
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla compares the criticism Jayson Tatum receives with Neymar 🗣️
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— B/R Football (@brfootball) June 12, 2024
Nevertheless, Brazil triumphed in the 2019 Copa America on home soil and the bitterness of defeat in the 2021 final at the Maracana to Argentina was lessened by the fact the game took place in front of a significantly reduced crowd due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Things were broadly trending in the right direction under long-serving head coach Tite heading into Qatar 2022. However, Brazil struggled to find top gear and were knocked out at the quarterfinal stage once again by an accomplished but ageing Croatia team.
That marked the end of the road for Tite and a damaging period of flux instigated by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). The masterplan was to bring in Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti ahead of the 2024 Copa America, with an interim coach keeping things ticking along beforehand.
Fluminense’s Copa Libertadores-winning coach Fernando Diniz certainly had the credentials for the gig but strung together four winless World Cup qualifiers in a row, including three straight defeats. This run reached its nadir with a 1-0 loss to Argentina at the Maracana — remarkably Brazil’s first-ever defeat in a home World Cup qualifier.
To compound matters, Ancelotti signed a contact extension at the Santiago Bernabeu and continued along his merry way to glory in La Liga and the UEFA Champions League. It was time for a re-think.
Who is Dorival Junior?
Name a major Brazilian football club and the chances are Dorival has served as their head coach. The 62-year-old led Flamengo to Libertadores glory in 2022 in his third spell with the Rio giants. The contrast he cut with Diniz at fellow Maracana tenants Fluminense (Dorival also led them for a month in 2013 to complete a successful relegation firefight) feels very significant now.
Diniz’s teams play an instantly recognisable style featuring intensive high pressing and counter-pressing along with a chaotic-looking approach in possession where players are encouraged to frequently interchange positions.
It is an alternative to the prevailing European style of positional play espoused by Pep Guardiola and has become known as “relationism”. The relationship between players on the ball is paramount as opposed to creating and exploiting space by holding your position.
Diniz’s results at Fluminense speak for themselves but installing such a noted ideologue as an interim coach was a curious move and Brazil paid the price with their results. An almost exclusively European-based national team were working under a coach who some see as a man capable of uprooting European thinking around the game. A noble cause, no doubt, but it didn’t translate into winning World Cup qualifiers.
Dorival, on the other hand, is more of a pragmatic operator. He has set up Brazil in a 4-2-3-1 formation but is tactically flexible and open to responding to the profile of the players at his disposal. Despite his nomadic career, he is notably well-liked by his former charges.
It’s perhaps no accident that all of these traits can be found when looking at Ancelotti, bathed in the glow of his fifth Champions League success.
Can Vinicius replace Neymar as Brazil’s star man?
This Brazil team has a strong Real Madrid flavour in attack, another factor that was no doubt part of Ancelotti’s appeal. Vinicius Junior heads into the Copa as a front-runner to win the Ballon d’Or, having starred on Madrid’s latest run to European glory.
Rodrygo formed a formidable partnership with Vinicius at club level this term and they will look to replicate that for the Selecao alongside whichever centre-forward gets the nod from Dorival.
The No. 9 slot has proved to be something of a poisoned chalice for Brazil strikers. Gabriel Jesus and Richarlison, each wounded by the team’s recent struggles, miss out this time around. Evanilson made his debut from the start against Mexico in June following a prolific season at Porto.
However, the teenager who replaced him and scored the winner is now the main source of Brazilian excitement.
Madrid-bound Endrick made it three goals in five caps, remarkably matching Vinicius’ overall international goals tally heading into the USMNT match. The hope is that with Neymar laid low by an ACL injury, Vinicius can assume the talismanic status he enjoys at Madrid. There is no doubt he can be the main man and remedy a return that is unusually meagre for a player of his capabilities.
If the Madrid wingers struggle for goals, then the likes of Raphinha and Gabriel Martinelli will be ready to make an impact, along with Savio on the back of his stunning breakout season at Girona.
The midfield options might not be as exciting but Bruno Guimaraes, Douglas Luiz and Lucas Paqueta lead an accomplished Premier League assortment, while Atalanta’s Europa League star Ederson has made the cut.
In defence, the imperious Marquinhos is likely to partner an ever-improving Gabriel Magalhaes, while Yan Couto is an emerging full-back in the Brazilian tradition, and Madrid’s Eder Militao is now back to full fitness after returning from an ACL injury at the end of March.
Is it a vintage Brazil squad? Absolutely not. But neither was the Argentina roster that won the Copa and World Cup back-to-back under Lionel Scaloni, who astutely managed a capable team so that it served star man Lionel Messi perfectly. If Dorival can pull together something similar for Vinicius then a year of torment for the Selecao will be quickly forgotten.
