This year’s Brazilian championship has made for an intriguing race, in which we are approaching the final curve. Corinthians have a significant lead, but before they get their hands on the trophy they must survive one final test when they visit second-placed Atlético Mineiro this Sunday. Continue reading Atlético Mineiro x Corinthians
Tag: Brasileirão
Grêmio wave goodbye to title hopes
Roger Machado’s exciting Grêmio side have surely been the story of this Brazilian season, though they have seen their title chances slip away this week after disappointing results against Corinthians and São Paulo.
At the start of the championship, Grêmio were touted as relegation candidates, with then manager Luiz Felipe Scolari playing a most uninspiring and cynical brand of football, with no individual talent to back it up.
The tricolor drew their opening match at home to Ponte Preta before losing away to Coritiba. Felipão, sensing his position was under threat, resigned and headed off to China, leaving Grêmio without a coach less than two weeks into the league season.
With no money in the bank to bring in a big-name replacement, Grêmio looked down the leagues and brought in the relatively untested Roger Machado, a former player of the Porto Alegre side in the 1990s.
Roger hit the ground running, winning seven of his first ten matches in charge. Meanwhile, he managed to find a playing style to suit his squad, focusing on speed, transitions and rapid passing – exactly what Brazilian defences have the most trouble with. Continue reading Grêmio wave goodbye to title hopes
Palmeiras win, but fail to impress
“Palmeiras beat Figueirense at home and win again after three matches” – FOLHA DE S.PAULO
Palmeiras earned an important home victory this evening, beating struggling Figueirense 2-0 in São Paulo. Both goals came in the second half – the first from a corner kick and the second from the penalty spot.
The scoreline was misleading though, as Palmeiras delivered yet another below-par performance.
A look at the cold, hard figures would suggest Palmeiras to be one of the most dominant sides in Brazil. They boast the league’s best attack with 41 goals in 25 games, while their shots on target ratio (shots on target for/shots on target against, a reliable indicator of team performance) is 1.48, also the best in the league. Against Figueirense, they had six shots on target to the away side’s two.
Yet they sit in fifth place, outside of the top four and 13 points behind leaders Corinthians.
So what is to blame for their underwhelming league position? Arguably, their form has dipped just as their rivals have improved. Continue reading Palmeiras win, but fail to impress
The football season that never ends
Brazilian football is hamstrung by its calendar, while Minas Gerais duo remain favourites for silverware in 2015
Exactly one month after the 2014 season came to a close, the majority of Brazil’s big football clubs got together last week to begin their pre-season training. In under 20 days, these teams will play their first competitive match of the Brazilian season, one of the longest and most demanding campaigns in the sport, comprising several competitions and precious little rest.
São Paulo FC, as an example, will play a bare minimum of 62 competitive matches in 2015. If they advance beyond the first round of the bloated São Paulo state championships, the Copa do Brasil and the Copa Libertadores (all of which are extremely likely), that figure would surpass 70 matches. Were they to reach the finals in all competitions (unlikely, but not impossible), they would have contested 81 games over the space of 44 weeks.
This obvious overkill of football has a predictably high number of negative consequences for the game in Brazil. The most important of these is the detrimental effect this calendar has on the quality of football being played. The hectic schedule allows a minimal amount of time for squads to train together, with players spending the days between matches catching their collective breaths rather than developing tactical strategy or working on their skills. As a result, Brazilian league matches are often turgid events, littered with fouls and misplaced passes, with results usually decided by goals from set-piece situations.
The spectacle is disappearing, fans are put off by the lack of quality and scandalous ticket prices, pitches are ravaged due to not having sufficient time to recover and even with the golden opportunity of having the World Cup in their back yard last year, the popularity of the Brazilian domestic game has not increased overseas. For those of us left behind, the devoted fans, regardless of how tedious the league may be, all that remains is the hope of a brighter future.
Things move quickly in Brazilian football. One week away from the game and you are likely to miss a manager losing his job, a high-profile falling out, a headline transfer move and the birth of a new craque. During the off-season, this is intensified, with clubs trying to pack months’ worth of rebuilding into the space of a few weeks.
Brazil’s anticlimactic state championships all but destroy the magical pre-season anticipation found in other leagues around the world, but with so many changes and question marks, there is still plenty to fill the pages of Brazilian sport pull-outs in the month of January.
Over the next few weeks, I shall be posting a series of blogs looking forward to the Brazilian football in 2015, focusing on several big clubs and the questions surrounding them going into this new season, beginning with a trip to the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais.
For the last two years, Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro, Minas’ big two from the state capital of Belo Horizonte, have ruled the roost in domestic Brazilian football. The former, with their iconic ocean blue shirts, have won the national championship two years in a row and should be the favourites to clinch a third successive title in 2015, a feat only achieved once previously, by Muricy Ramalho’s São Paulo side of 2006-2008.
Cruzeiro’s secret has been in their stability, which has in turn bred consistency. For the last decade, while under the presidency of the “Perrela brothers”, the club had a reputation for being mismanaged, with woeful transfer policy and rumours of shady behind-the-scenes activities. When Zezé Perrela (now a Senator for the State of Minas Gerais) left the club in 2011, he did so on the back of a disastrous season in which Cruzeiro avoided relegation by only two points.
His successor, Gilvan Tavares, has managed to successfully transform Cruzeiro into one of the best run clubs in the country. As opposed to the “savage capitalism” approach adopted by the Perrelas, the transfer policy of Tavares’ Cruzeiro is far more intelligent. There is no annual rush to cash in on every remotely talented footballer in the squad as would happen under the previous regime, instead the club look to maintain the spine of their team year on year, only selling when the time (and price) is judged to be right.
Another key factor to their recent success has been coach Marcelo Oliveira. In his time at Cruzeiro he has been able to form an effective tactical system, but far more important has been his ability to manage his squad.
In recent years, Cruzeiro have had one of the deepest rosters in Brazilian football, with several talented options available in key positions, as well as promising youngsters pushing the senior players for places. Generally, the more the merrier when it comes to personnel in Brazil, especially considering the gruelling calendar, but this pressure cooker of egos so often ends up exploding all over the manager’s face. Where Oliveira has succeeded is in keeping his entire squad happy, rotating and substituting at the right time, making sure everyone feels valued.
In these last few victorious seasons, Cruzeiro have always had some form of rebuilding to do, but thanks to being able to hold on to most of their first team year on year, it has been minimal. This off-season, however, could be the exception. Marcelo Moreno, their long-haired Bolivian goal-getter, has left Cruzeiro after a season-long loan, returning to parent club Grêmio. In an attempt to replace him, the club has moved for Santos’ Leandro Damião, generally regarded as one of the biggest flops in Brazilian football in 2015.
There is no doubt that Cruzeiro is a better fit for Damião than Santos – the champions focus a lot of their attacks on high balls into the penalty area, where the 17-times capped striker excels – but Cruzeiro’s system requires their No 9 to be a lot more than just an aerial threat. The reason Marcelo Moreno was so successful at Cruzeiro was his off-the-ball movement, creating space for the attacking midfield trio to infiltrate the area and score goals. Leandro Damião is far more cumbersome than the Bolivian, and may struggle to fulfil the role asked of him.
Elsewhere, last year’s star player Ricardo Goulart seems set to sign for Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande, reliable left-back Egídio is on his way to Ukraine to play for Dnipro, while talented midfielder Lucas Silva is likely to join Real Madrid at some point during Europe’s winter transfer window. Cruzeiro have recruited Chilean midfielder Felipe Seymour to fill Silva’s shoes, and although it will be interesting to see how he gets on in Brazil, it certainly feels like the Foxes will go into 2015 with a considerably weaker side than in previous years.
While Cruzeiro have been the gold standard in consistency, the best side over the course of a 38-game season, their city rivals Atlético Mineiro have proved themselves to be the knockout specialists. When the stakes are high and the chips are down, there are few teams capable of getting past Atlético, including Cruzeiro.
After going through a transformation not too dissimilar to Cruzeiro’s in 2011 (albeit with the same president, the outspoken Alexandre Kalil), Atlético managed to build a team that dazzled spectators, led by attacking coach Cuca and his number 10: Ronaldinho Gaúcho. In a campaign that had several last-minute winners, incredulous comebacks and saved penalties, Atlético were crowned the best in South America after winning the 2013 Copa Libertadores, the first time the club had lifted the continent’s grand prize. Even with the odds stacked against them, Atlético always pulled through, playing an extremely fast tempo brand of football which constantly forced their opponents into making mistakes and became known as estilo galo doido, or “crazy rooster style”, a play on the club’s nickname, Galo.
Earlier last year, however, many thought the Galo bubble had burst. They had embarrassed themselves at the 2013 Club World Cup, not reaching the anticipated final against Bayern Munich and losing to Raja Casablanca in the semi-finals; coach Cuca had gone to China; nippy winger Bernard was sold to Shakhtar Donetsk; Ronaldinho was playing poorly and on his way out and new coach Levir Culpi seemed unable to control his squad.
The 2014 Copa do Brasil dispelled those doubts and marked the return of the galo doido. Curly-haired Luan took Bernard’s old role on the flank, Argentine midfielder Jesús Dátolo, who had gotten off to a slow start to his Atlético career the previous year, became a critical part of the team, scoring seven goals and laying on 20 assists in all competitions, while Diego Tardelli seemed to be playing in five positions at once in attack, capping a superb return to form with a call-up to the Brazilian national team. The dramatic turnarounds returned, and Atlético marched on to the Copa do Brasil title, playing their rivals Cruzeiro off the park in the two-legged final.
This January the doubts have returned, all revolving around one issue: Diego Tardelli, will he stay, or will he go? The forward seems set on securing a transfer to Chinese football, the announcement of which could happen any day now. If he is to leave, Atlético will soon reach the harsh conclusion that he is irreplaceable. That is not to say that Galo are destined to fall short of expectations without Tardelli, however his departure would force a style change at the club, as there is no-one available on the market that would be capable of performing his function.
Striker Lucas Pratto has arrived from Argentinian club Vélez Sarsfield, where he has been elected player of the year for the past two seasons, but he offers the team a different threat, more physical and able to lead the line, with a touch of flair and creativity thrown in. If Tardelli stays, they could form a very formidable partnership; if he leaves, Culpi’s reshuffle will no doubt be designed around his new Argentinian striker.
Next time, Palmeiras and São Paulo: a dispute that goes back more than 70 years resurfaces – football loses.
Cover image: Bruno Cantini / Atlético-MG
The convenient magic of the Cup
As far as Brazilian football tournaments go, the country’s domestic cup competition, the Copa do Brasil, ticks all the boxes.
Firstly, it provides a straightforward path into South America’s most prestigious tournament: the Copa Libertadores. Since the mid-1990s, Brazil’s bloated state championships have become more and more irrelevant, while the Libertadores, South America’s answer to the Champions League, is king. The four best-placed clubs at the end of the Brazilian championship gain qualification to the continent’s premier competition, but the easiest way in is by winning the Copa do Brasil. Earning a place in the national championship’s top four requires consistency and squad depth over 38 matches, while a club can reach the cup final with a brief spurt of investment and a successful run of only six or eight games.
Secondly, it offers something that fourth place in the league cannot: silverware. If there is one thing that Brazilian clubs crave above all else, it is trophies. With so many big clubs distributed among the country’s several big cities, only a small fraction of these equally traditional teams can be successful at one time, leaving an ever-present and sizeable demographic of upset Brazilian football fans.
Winning the cup serves to temporarily placate these supporters and quench their trophylust. According to Mauricio Savarese, journalist and co-author of “A to Zico: an alphabet of Brazilian football” along with myself: “Between finishing second in the league and winning the Copa do Brasil, everyone prefers winning the cup.”
The cup competition also satisfies a basal desire of the neutral fan, which is decisive, winner-take-all knockout football. Since the beginning, the sudden death format (which is emphatically referred to in Brazil as mata-mata, literally “kill-kill”) has been deeply ingrained in the Brazilian football experience.
Before 2003, the national championship comprised a league structure followed by a deciding knockout phase to determine which club went home with the trophy. This was definitely counter-intuitive, as the idea of a long championship is to crown the team that has performed best overall, not just in the final two weeks, and the second half of the league phase was hampered by tiny attendances and equally poor television ratings.
However, mata-mata is so important to Brazilian fans, who revel in the spectacle and tension the games provide. So much so, that there are still many who defend the return of a knockout system to the national league. When the Brazilian championship made the switch to a straight points system, the Copa do Brasil grew in importance, providing the sudden death format loved by the fans without the obvious drawbacks.
Origins
Although those involved may tell you otherwise, the Copa do Brasil was created as a political tool. To fully understand why, we need to take a step back to the 1970s as Brazil’s military dictatorship’s iron grip on the country began to slip.
The generals’ ruling party, Arena, began holding local elections around Brazil which were inconsequential but gave the impression of a fair, democratic system to overseas onlookers. The plan began to backfire around 1974, as Arena were beaten at the polls in many regions. Aware of the popular power in football, the dictatorship attempted to appease locals in the areas they had suffered bad results, by building stadiums and promoting regional clubs to Brazil’s top division.
This process continued for some time and reached a critical mass as the Brazilian championship swelled to an incomprehensible size. In 1979, as democracy was about to return to the country, the tournament had an incredible 94 teams. When the generals were deposed, the championship returned to a practical number.
Although the military dictatorship was defeated, Brazilian football’s ruling body, the CBF (previously CBD), lived on and still craved these confederal relations in order for them to remain in power. With a number of upset associations throughout the country, the CBF created the Copa do Brasil to reclaim their favour, guaranteeing that major clubs from Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre would travel Brazil, once again playing in these local stadiums against these smaller clubs.
Such interests are still very much alive, as was shown last year when a leaked fax showed Parnahyba Sport Club from the northern state of Piauí requesting that their state federation lobby the CBF so the club could draw Flamengo or Santos in the first round of the cup.
One leg good, two legs bad
A criticism often aimed at the Copa do Brasil is its insistence in having two-legged ties. With the Brazilian calendar incredibly crowded as it is, having all of these extra fixtures seems nonsensical. Furthermore, it makes life incredibly difficult for smaller clubs who, even if they manage a heroic victory over one of the biggest clubs in the country, are required to play a second leg, making progress to the next round even less likely.
One such example happened earlier this season, as fourth division Londrina played Santos in the third round. Londrina have built an interesting side and are dead certs for promotion this season, and in their home leg they managed an incredibly tense and well-deserved 2-1 win against the first division club. Such a result should have been rewarded with a place in the last 16, but a 2-0 victory in Santos cut them down to size.
Traditional cup competitions around the world, such as the FA Cup and the Coupe de France, are made richer by these rare moments of giantkilling, but the very format of the Copa do Brasil makes these situations near impossible.
This brings up an interesting topic however: do Brazilian fans actually like giantkilling? Leonardo Bertozzi, journalist and pundit at ESPN Brasil, doesn’t believe so. “The Brazilian television audience is interested in seeing big, well-known teams. There’s also a large slice of that population that is only interested in watching their own team.”
“Therefore, these big achievements of smaller sides aren’t received with much enthusiasm, especially from those who hold the television broadcasting rights, as invariably these matches see a decrease in audience figures.”
Teams from the second division have performed well this year, but ultimately, a final between national champions Cruzeiro and second division Bragantino would be seen as a non-event, not a spectacle. “Seeing the small sides is fun, but it takes away some of the weight of the title,” says Mauricio Savarese.
Furthermore, when these giantkillings do happen in Brazil, it is interesting to observe how they are remembered. The focus is always placed on the shame of the slain giant instead of the glory of the plucky underdog. “Flamengo lost the 2004 cup final to Santo André, and that has gone down as one of their biggest embarrassments in history,” recalls Savarese. The 2004 Copa da Brasil is not referred to as the one Santo André won, but the one Flamengo lost.
Intelligent itinerants
One of the underdogs in this year’s tournament, the aforementioned Bragantino, are entirely aware that the odds are stacked against them and after drawing some high-profile teams, they have decided to use their presence for their own financial gain. After being pitted against (and defeating) São Paulo FC and progressing to play Corinthians, Bragantino opted to move both of their home legs to other cities in order to make more money from gate receipts.
First, against São Paulo, the fixture was moved to the city of Ribeirão Preto and the 30,000-capacity Estádio Santa Cruz; then, against Corinthians, they went all in and took the game to Cuiabá and the Arena Pantanal, one of the 2014 World Cup stadiums. Such an attitude would be unthinkable in the FA Cup, for example, where home advantage and the cramped, noisy atmosphere of lower league stadiums can make all the difference, but the decision becomes more understandable when you consider Bragantino’s financial position.
In this year’s second division, Bragantino have an average home attendance of 732. They are not a newly-formed club without any tradition, having been founded in 1928. When going through such difficult times, smaller clubs such as Bragantino are forced to look elsewhere to make money. Aware that clubs such as São Paulo and Corinthians have huge pockets of support all over the country who don’t often get a chance to watch their club, Bragantino used that to their advantage.
Bragantino may well have the chance to earn even more money from gate receipts in this year’s cup, as they managed to win their first leg against Corinthians, 1-0 in Cuiabá. Tonight though, they will face Mano Menezes’ side in São Paulo for a much tougher test.
This year’s Copa do Brasil hasn’t exactly been one of giantkillings, but bigger clubs being defeated by lower-ranked, but still competent sides. The biggest surprises have been a pair of second-division sides from Brazil’s north-east: Ceará and América-RN. Their home cities of Fortaleza and Natal have always been difficult away trips for the traditional big clubs in the south-east, but both sides have been playing incredibly well, even away from home. Both are in action this evening, against Botafogo and Atlético Paranaense respectively, hoping to book their place in the quarter-finals.
Elsewhere, the biggest tie of the round was set to be Grêmio v Santos, but after the away side’s goalkeeper Aranha was racially abused by home fans in the Arena Grêmio during the first leg, the second leg was suspended and is unlikely ever to be played, with Grêmio facing expulsion from the tournament. That, unfortunately, is a story for another day.
Back to reality
I regret to inform you that the World Cup has ended.
I know, I know, it’s not fair. Yes, we should have it every year (preferably in Brazil), and no, things will not be the same now that it has gone. Unfortunately, we have to wipe away the tears and get on with our lives.
The 2014 World Cup was a spectacular month of football, friendship and education. A celebration of the best things this wonderful sport has to offer, as well as pages and pages of narratives and subplots. As usual, it was great to see teams from all around the world, principally those outside of my region. Costa Rica were a surprise and a joy, with their superb spine of Keylor Navas, Giancarlo González, Celso Borges and Joel Campbell. Algeria’s first half performance against South Korea was one of the best moments of the tournament, only Germany in their first half against Brazil were more deadly.
Speaking of the German side, everyone was left in no doubt that the best team came out on top. This current Germany setup has given an example of planning and organisation which every footballing country around the world can learn from – their fourth World Cup trophy was more than deserved.
Anyway, it is time to return to reality. The wallchart has been folded away and kept in a safe place, the flags have been taken down from the windows and the television is showing soap operas and awful films in the slots the football has vacated.
Many football fans have expressed their desire to take a rest from the game, a couple of weeks of recovery and relaxation, allowing for a smooth comedown and a fresh appetite for the start of the European season. Fans in Brazil, however, have no such luxury.
Due to the Brazilian FA’s complete ignorance of how to create a spectacle, the Brazilian championship gets back underway this evening, only two days after the World Cup final was played at the Maracanã.
Six of the 12 World Cup stadiums will be in use in this midweek round of games, although only three of those are for top-flight matches. In the second division, Recife’s Arena Pernambuco will host Náutico v Sampaio Corrêa, Arena das Dunas in Natal will see América-RN v Bragantino, while the Arena Pantanal in the centre-west city of Cuiabá is strangely hosting Vasco da Gama (from Rio de Janeiro, in the south-east) against Santa Cruz (from Recife, in the north-east).
Why would Vasco choose to play a home match around 1,000 miles away from Rio de Janeiro? They are serving the final match of a punishment handed to them by the CBF for fan violence, forbidding them from playing at their home stadium. Instead of staging the game just outside of Rio, they are trying to ride Cuiabá’s World Cup wave and squeeze as much money as they can out of the situation.
In the first division, Corinthians will take on Internacional in their first match at the brand-new Arena Corinthians since Fifa handed over the keys last week. Bahia will host São Paulo at the gorgeous Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, while Cruzeiro return to the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte (the site of Brazil’s 7-1 loss to Germany) to play Vitória.
In the weekend rounds of the first and second divisions, only four of the stadiums will be in use.
More frustrating than this are the ticket prices stipulated for these matches. In tonight’s second division matches, the cheapest ticket to the Arena Pernambuco is R$ 50 (around £13), while any Vasco or Santa Cruz fans willing to make the trek to Cuiabá will have to fork out R$ 60 for the cheapest ticket to the Arena Pantanal.
The first division matches are not much better, Corinthians and Cruzeiro have set their cheapest tickets at R$ 50, bearing in mind that this only accounts for a small section of the stadium. Seats with reasonable views are going for anything between R$ 80 and R$ 180.
This might not sound like much compared to British prices, but when put up against the average monthly salary in Brazil, these are the most expensive tickets in world football. In 2012, a study was conducted to this end and showed the Brazilian league to have the highest ticket prices compared to average earnings, using a mean price of only R$ 38. If this post-World Cup trend continues, the average will increase further and more and more will be excluded from the sport.
Turning attentions to on-pitch matters, the expectation for this post-World Cup stage of the Brazilian championship is that we will see a group of title challengers begin to pull away from the rest over the next few weeks. Leaders and reigning champions Cruzeiro will be looking to open up some space between themselves and second-placed Fluminense, while Corinthians, São Paulo, Internacional and Grêmio will battle for one of the four Copa Libertadores places up for grabs.
The transfer window has been positive for most of these top-half teams, especially Corinthians and Grêmio. The former have made some impressive signings, bringing in experienced defender Ânderson Martins, Uruguayan playmaker Nicolás Lodeiro and hard-working midfielder Elias. All three will go straight into the starting lineup.
Grêmio have also strengthened their team considerably, repatriating midfielder Giuliano, who was extremely promising when taking Grêmio’s rivals Internacional to the Copa Libertadores title of 2010 and has been playing in Ukraine since. Winger Fernandinho has joined from Atlético Mineiro and flying right-back Matías Fernández signed from Sampdoria. The southern side already had a decent squad before the World Cup break, with some exciting young talent breaking through. They will be worth keeping an eye on between now and December.
Reform in Brazilian football: where to begin?
The bomb has gone off and any illusions about the strength of Brazilian football have been obliterated. As the dust settles after Brazil’s 7-1 loss to Germany, there appears to be a consensus around the country’s football fans: something needs to change.
The federal government has made its stance clear, committing to actively instigate reform throughout the national game, proposing new laws and regulations and promising to put pressure on the Brazilian FA (CBF) and heads of the country’s big clubs and state federations. A complete clear-out of the CBF, something many have called for, is out of the question. Fifa law forbids government involvement in the operation of national football federations and we have just seen the Nigerian FA suspended for that very reason.
What is happening is the proposal of a new set of laws to tackle the obscene debts of Brazil’s major clubs, something approaching Fifa’s Financial Fair Play ruling, which will soon be voted upon in the Chamber of Deputies. The Law of Fiscal Responsibility in Sport (not as catchy as FFP) proposes the refinancing of clubs’ debts over the next 25 years (in 2013, Flamengo’s debt reached R$ 750,7 million, 11 times the tax bill that saw Rangers put out of business in Scotland), but only if they follow regulations regarding good business practice and responsible spending. Sanctions would be handed out to those who do not comply, including financial penalties or sporting punishments such as point deductions and demotions.
Its aim is to have better run clubs in Brazil and avoid the widespread reports of unpaid salaries we have seen for the past ten years and beyond. Of course, this is a noble initiative, although I would like to have seen more incentives put in place for clubs to develop infrastructure, youth development schemes and programs to benefit supporters attending the stadium.
Another point of contention is the premature exit of young Brazilian footballers to leagues overseas, which President Dilma Rousseff has addressed herself, saying Brazil is “letting go of [its] main attraction”.
Although Brazil’s citizens go to the polls in October to decide whether or not Rousseff gets a second term in office, these actions do not seem to be typical electioneering. Claims that football has the power to influence the Brazilian political system are false and insulting to many people here, who rightly point out Brazil is about much more than just its national football team.
Success begins at home
Of course, outside of the political sphere, the success of the Seleção is an important issue, considering it is a great asset to the country, a brand recognised and loved around the world. Forming a strong national football team is a group effort, requiring people at all levels to pull in the same direction. Problems have been growing for some time, but Brazil have often been able to fall back on their immense pool of natural footballing talent to pull them through in difficult situations. You can imagine a strong German team without Thomas Müller, Manuel Neuer or Toni Kroos, but a Brazilian side without Thiago Silva or Neymar?
An important contributing factor is the weakness of Brazilian domestic football. The league has adopted an export model for some time, grooming young players and selling them to Europe for transfer fees that keep domestic clubs afloat, but this has reached a critical mass and the results are evident on the field. When Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, 13 of their squad played for clubs at home. This year, only four were Brazil-based: reserve goalkeepers Jefferson and Victor, and centre-forwards Fred and Jô, widely regarded as the team’s weak links.
Having players based at home is no guarantee of international success (just ask England and Russia, who crashed out in the group stages after selecting exclusively home-based squads), but it certainly helps and reflects the strength of a nation’s footballers. Only once in the history of the sport has the World Cup been won by a squad who had a majority of foreign-based players: France in 1998. Argentina could become another exception to that rule, but they have been able to count on the best player in the world, possibly the greatest of his generation, Lionel Messi.
The reasons for this exodus of young Brazilian talent are numerous, and they go beyond the national league’s model of exporting players. First of all, conditions for youth team players are woeful at many of the country’s big clubs, with no support given to the starry-eyed teenagers living hundreds of miles away from their families in housing that looks more like the workhouses seen in Georgian Great Britain.
Then, when these players become professionals, they have to face a whole host of new problems, from the aforementioned instances of delayed or unpaid wages to the crazy calendar of Brazil’s domestic leagues. Players at big clubs are forced to play all-year-round, twice or three times a week and often on poor and dangerous pitches, while those at smaller clubs may only have matches for two months of the entire year.
The quality of football in Brazil’s top division has improved over the last few years, but this is largely down to clubs signing expensive foreign talent, making Argentinians Andres D’Alessandro and Dário Conca and Chileans Charles Aránguiz and Jorge Valdivia among the league’s main attractions, instead of developing Brazilians.
Players are leaving Brazil at younger ages: a quick glance through the Under 19, 17 or even Under 15 Brazil squads will show the majority of them already playing for European clubs. Since the turn of the century, stars of Brazilian football such as Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and Kaká all developed into magnificent players while playing in Europe, but they all made a significant impact at a Brazilian club before leaving. This current Brazil squad has players such as David Luiz, Dante, Luiz Gustavo, Fernandinho and Hulk, who didn’t stay at home long enough to make a name for themselves and instead came to the attention of the Brazilian public when starring at top European clubs.
Paulinho and Neymar are exceptions, but even then Neymar left for Barcelona at 21 years of age, while Paulinho had already left Brazil to play in Poland and Lithuania before returning and getting his break at Corinthians.
Players not at fault
It would be difficult to blame the players themselves for this trend. Considering the conditions offered to footballers in Brazil, when the opportunity comes to go abroad it is often too hard to refuse. We had two good examples of this in recent years with former Fluminense forward Wellington Nem and ex-Botafogo winger Vitinho.
Nem had been an important part of Fluminense’s youth setup, being groomed for a first-team place from a young age, working through the youth ranks and having an impressive loan spell at southern club Figueirense. He was an important part of the Fluminense side that won the 2012 Brazilian championship and was even knocking on the door for a call-up to the national team. In June of 2013, Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk came knocking with a transfer offer of €9 million. The player was hesitant to leave, he was playing well at home and still had plenty of developing to do, but he was under so much pressure from his family, his agent and his club, who were in a dire financial situation at the time. Fluminense told him in no uncertain terms that they wanted the money and Nem was forced to go to Donetsk, where he played only five times last season.
Vitinho’s rise to fame came so quickly, bursting on to the scene at Botafogo under the wing of Dutch veteran Clarence Seedorf. In the space of a few months he had gone from an unknown youth product to the team’s most important player. But before Botafogo fans could make him an idol, he was already on his way to Europe. Half-way through his first season as a professional, Russian side CSKA Moscow snapped him up for €9.5 million. Again, it is difficult to blame the player. Vitinho’s wife had just given birth to their first child and Botafogo had failed to pay him his previous month’s wages. CSKA arrived with money on the table, and not knowing if he would ever get the chance again, he accepted.
The future of Brazilian football may well lie in the hands of Bom Senso FC, a group formed by players to fight for better conditions throughout the game in Brazil. They have delivered their demands, they have met with influential figures and they have even staged protests on the pitch. Only a couple of days after the World Cup final, the Brazilian championship will restart with a full card of midweek fixtures. Now is the time for the leaders of Bom Senso to act, the eyes of the world are still on Brazil, the shouts of gol da Alemanha! still ringing in their ears, the government is behind them and they can count on another influential member with the return of Kaká to São Paulo FC. Now is the time for change.
Sinful Sundays
Sundays are sacred in Brazil. For a population that works long hours, often Monday to Saturday, the 24 hours’ rest at the end of each week is inviolable.
A typical domingo could include a little lie-in, followed by a walk in the park and a stodgy-yet-comforting macarronada for lunch. There are often visits from family and, weather permitting, an impromptu barbecue-cum-samba is not unheard of. However the main event of the day, the one around which all other activities are scheduled, is the afternoon football.
4pm (5pm during Daylight Savings) on a Sunday is the Brazilian version of 3pm on a Saturday. But thankfully, unlike in the UK, Brazilian television networks honour the tradition and schedule the weekend’s prime fixtures for Sunday afternoon, showing the most attractive (in terms of viewing figures) to the whole country on terrestrial television.
I don’t necessarily watch the match selected for public television (being in São Paulo, it’s almost always Corinthians), but I can’t recall the last Sunday in which I wasn’t parked in front of a screen between four and six.
Many of my serenest and most satisfying moments in this country have been on Sundays, whether that be lounging on a beach, sitting outside a boteco watching the world go by or relaxing after a particularly good churrasco. However, these Sundays all incorporated the 4 o’clock kick-off.
That’s why, when the Sunday afternoon match is dull, it’s a bummer.
Yesterday’s game between São Paulo and Santos was one of these such occasions: a meeting between two sides who seemed determined to display every negative trait of Brazilian football from the past decade, made all the more unholy by the sacrosanct time at which it kicked off.
It was a match devoid of intelligence or strategy, as twenty-two players played out 90 minutes of aimless punts, fouls, set-pieces, sprints, dives and failed dribbles, apparently unaware that they were part of two 11-man teams. The final score was irrelevant (0-0, if you must know). It felt like a different sport, not the creative, spontaneous game of football, but something more rehearsed, overly individual and technical. Volleyball comes to mind.
Santos started better, consciously closing their opponents down high up the field, but when they managed to reclaim possession they had nothing to offer.
It was fitting then, that the biggest story of the match wasn’t happening on the field, but on the São Paulo bench, where creative midfielder (and ex-Santos hero) Paulo Henrique Ganso was sat, dropped from the first eleven.
São Paulo boss Muricy Ramalho justified his decision to drop Ganso, stating that he wanted a quicker attacking unit, one capable of exploiting space behind the Santos defence. A perfectly defensible stance, considering that Ganso is often so lethargic he makes Treebeard look hyperactive. However what they gained in pace, they lost in creativity.
With Luis Fabiano playing in front of an attacking midfield trio of Osvaldo, Dorlán Pabón and Douglas, and with Álvaro Pereira overlapping on the left flank, they weren’t short of attacking options, but they were short of someone to link them together. Without a midfield organiser to offer a constant passing option and vary their focus of attack, their forward quintet was like five delicious, freshly-sourced ingredients, without a chef to make them into a meal.
It’s hard to disagree with Muricy’s decision here though, as Ganso has been anonymous since the end of last season. The story of the playmaker, who at the age of twenty was (ridiculously) called the “best player in the world in his position”, seems to have unravelled completely.
Ganso came through at Santos at the same time as Neymar, and the two formed the spine of an excellent side that won the Copa Libertadores in 2011, managed by one Muricy Ramalho. In the early days, Ganso was considered the better player of the pair, possibly due to his position as an old-fashioned cerebral number 10, the like of which Brazil hadn’t produced in years. However while Neymar exploded, revealing his limitless potential and taking the world by storm, Ganso struggled with injuries and failed to develop key aspects of his game.
Neymar was handed a mammoth contract by Santos, while Ganso (who had been told for years that he was just as good, if not better, than his team-mate) was ignored. Jealousy appeared to creep in and Ganso was locked in bitter contract disputes with the club, not helped by the fractious relationship between former Santos president Luis Álvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro and DIS, the investment group that own a large part of the playmaker’s image rights.
Perennially injured or squabbling with the board, the Santos fans soon turned on him and in September 2012, Ganso migrated inland to nest at São Paulo FC in the most expensive transfer between two Brazilian clubs in history.
Despite feeling valued at his new club, the midfielder’s form never recovered. He has shown flashes of his former brilliance, but it never takes long before the dejected, absent, uninterested Paulo Henrique Ganso shows up again. Even Muricy Ramalho, the coach that believed in him unconditionally, has started to drop him.
Now it could be time for us to adjust our expectations of Ganso. The limitless promise of his early years is unlikely ever to be delivered, while the chances of a big European move seem remote. He is, however, a unique player with a distinct style that is best suited to South American football, where spaces are bigger and tempo is lower.
Common Sense FC
Months after millions of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against rising public transport costs, government corruption and Fifa, Brazil’s professional footballers are getting in on the act.
A group of over 70 of the league’s most influential senior players have signed a petition to demand changes to the new calendar proposed by Brazil’s football governing body, the CBF, for the 2014 season.
To factor in a month-long pause for the World Cup in July, the massive number of matches that already comprise a Brazilian season are to be squeezed into a much shorter period of time. The new calendar will also make pre-season preparation impossible, as the 2013 season ends on 8th December and the 2014 state championships are scheduled to kick off on 12th January, leaving a gap of only 35 days. Discounting 30 days for the players’ holidays, many teams will have only five days of pre-season training.
The players’ movement, led by Corinthians’ Paulo André and Coritiba’s Alex and reportedly organised via a private WhatsApp group, goes by the name of Bom Senso FC (Common Sense FC) and was established without any collaboration with Brazil’s much maligned players’ union, Fenapaf. Bom Senso FC has demanded a meeting with the CBF to discuss changes to the calendar, citing the athletes’ health and the quality of the spectacle as their main concerns.
So far support for Bom Senso FC has been good, with several players, coaches, directors and journalists speaking out in favour of their cause. Grêmio’s playboy head coach Renato Gaúcho quipped yesterday that a short pre-season was like “a honeymoon without your wife”.
National team head coach Felipão, as is expected of a CBF employee with authoritarian tendencies, distanced himself from the movement and toed the party line, suggesting that although the dialogue is important, Brazil’s calendar isn’t terribly different from Europe’s major leagues.
I can’t be sure whether Felipão really believes that or not, either way it is wildly inaccurate.
In their 2012-13 season Bayern Munich won the treble by playing a total of 59 matches: 34 in the Bundesliga, 13 in the Champions League, 11 in the DFB-Pokal and the one-off DFL-Supercup final.
The Brasileirão’s current leaders Cruzeiro, who did not participate in any continental tournament and only played four matches before being eliminated in the last 16 of the Copa do Brasil, will have played 60 times by the end of the 2013 season.
Corinthians will have played at least 75 times come the New Year, Atlético-MG aren’t far behind with 71. For a Brazilian team to repeat Bayern’s successes and win the treble, they would need to play around 80 matches in a single season.
Fluminense’s Rafael Sóbis, who has previously played in Spain and the United Arab Emirates, last week gave one of the clearest demonstrations of the dangers facing these overworked professionals. After the final whistle of Flu’s home match against Coritiba, Sóbis collapsed on the pitch, vomited in the centre circle and had to be carried down the tunnel by Fluminense’s medical staff.
In a subsequent interview with Lance!Net, Sóbis admitted that he and other players regularly have to play with injuries.
“I feel angry because we can’t do anything about it,” he said. “We’re not machines.”
The obvious problem is Brazil’s state championships, which are played at the start of every year. Relics of a time when a Brazilian national championship was impractical, the estaduais were once highly regarded and fiercely contested. Now, Brazil’s principal state championships (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Bahia and Pernambuco) consist of a handful of top division teams inanely battering part-time opposition, often in harsh weather and on woeful pitches.
Realistically, these tournaments aren’t going anywhere, regardless of player protests. Brazil’s football governing body, the CBF, is a confederation of Brazil’s 27 states and one federal district, which breeds a culture of exchanging favours and attempts to keep each state happy. Scrapping the state federations’ principal tournaments would be political suicide for anyone at the head of the CBF.
However what does need to happen is the slimming down of some of the more jowly tournaments. São Paulo’s state championship, the Campeonato Paulista, consists of an opening phase of 19 matches before a final knockout stage with eight teams. The 20-team tournament could just as easily be split into two, three or even four groups, dramatically reducing its length.
Brazilian football’s long-term problem is the calendar itself. Instead of the July-May season used in most of the world (and recently adopted by several South American nations), Brazil’s football season is in line with the Gregorian calendar.
Playing from February to December makes perfect sense considering Brazil’s climate, but being out of sync with the rest of the world brings myriad setbacks.
For example, Brazil’s football season does not make space for Fifa’s international dates, meaning that the bigger clubs are regularly losing their top players to international duty. The international transfer window also comes at a terrible time for Brazilian clubs, making long-term planning impossible as top talents are poached by European clubs during the season.
A transition to a world calendar is unlikely, because (as you may have guessed) the CBF are an ultra-conservative bunch and it would require something huge to force a change. Theoretically, Brazil’s big clubs could break away and form their own league à la the Premier League, but many of these organisations are struggling with their own massive debts (Rangers FC were liquidated for having debts eleven times smaller than Flamengo’s current arrears).
The arrival of Bom Senso FC is certainly an exciting development, but after just a few years in Brazil, I have become somewhat pessimistic about such things. Brazilians have a popular phrase used in times like these, “tudo acaba em pizza”, literally, everything ends in pizza. It encapsulates a tendency in Brazil of whenever reform is on the table, favours are exchanged, compromises are made, and everyone ends up with a slice of the pie, therefore blocking any genuine change.
When the leaders of Bom Senso FC meet with the heads of the CBF, let’s hope pizza isn’t on the menu.
Muricy and the Ganso question
Two months ago, on the eve of Ney Franco’s dismissal from São Paulo, I floated the theory that Muricy Ramalho would soon return to the club after four years away. And I wasn’t the only one.
It soon emerged that a return for Muricy would be too costly for the São Paulo board at that moment and another former coach, Paulo Autuori, was called in to fill the vacancy instead. Three wins in 17 matches later, Autuori was sacked and with desperation kicking in, Muricy was brought back.
With São Paulo entrenched in a relegation fight, Muricy has nothing to lose upon returning to the Morumbi. If he manages to steer them to safety, he will be the hero; if they eventually suffer relegation, he will argue that the damage was done before his arrival.
The 1-0 win in his first match in charge, at home to Ponte Preta, proves very little. Ponte Preta did not pose much of a threat to São Paulo, and footballers often give above-average performances under a new coach in an attempt to impress and consolidate their place in the team. São Paulo has a difficult month of fixtures ahead and once the “Muricy novelty” wears off, it will be interesting to see where they stand come October.
São Paulo has long been recognised as having one of the best squads in Brazil, an invention with which I struggle to agree. They do have some supremely talented players, like Luis Fabiano and Ganso, and several with great work-rate and fitness, but few are well-rounded or complete. In fact, I regard Jadson as being the only complete player in São Paulo’s squad, someone who has talent, technique, ability and creativity.
Besides Jadson, the São Paulo squad is bursting with creative players who can’t mark, quick wingers with no creativity and hard-workers with no ability. Even more worrying is that Jadson’s role in the squad is being marginalised and he is played out of position (or left on the bench) in order to make space for Paulo Henrique Ganso.
Ney Franco and Paulo Autuori struggled with the Ganso question and their inability to find a suitable solution ultimately contributed to their downfall. When the club’s backroom staff brought the playmaker to the Morumbi for R$ 24 million in 2012, São Paulo already had Jadson playing in Ganso’s position and on magnificent form. Due to the exceptional amount of money spent on the transfer, there was huge pressure placed on the head coach to select him and get him playing well. However, one year into his São Paulo career, Ganso has yet to look comfortable in the tricolor shirt.
Not long before he was given his marching orders, Paulo Autuori uncovered a potential solution to the Ganso question. Two weeks ago, with Luis Fabiano suspended for an away match against Botafogo, Autuori set up São Paulo in a 4-2-3-1 shape with Ganso as a false nine. With Jadson and Lucas Evangelista marking the opposition full-backs and Osvaldo making bursting runs from attacking midfield, Ganso was allowed the freedom to focus on his own game, staying in advanced positions and organising São Paulo’s attacking moves.
The match finished 0-0, but it was one of São Paulo’s most convincing performances of the season and they successfully neutralised an excellent Botafogo team.
Unfortunately, this was the one and only time São Paulo has played that way, as Luis Fabiano returned from suspension for the following match and went back to his role as centre-forward. Luis Fabiano is a poacher who, like Ganso, contributes nothing to defensive phases. When they play together, the rest of the team is left with much more work to do and they are easily overrun in midfield.
That is not to say that they cannot play together, but when a team plays with these talented “luxury” players, these players need to make up for their lack of defensive work by scoring goals or providing assists.
Brazil is full of good examples of this type of attacker, such as D’Alessandro at Internacional, Douglas at Corinthians, Valdivia at Palmeiras and Alex at Coritiba. Neither of them make much of a contribution to their team’s defensive play, but all of them consistently create goals.
Paulo Autuori’s last match in charge, a 2-0 away defeat to Coritiba, highlighted this perfectly. On one side there was Luis Fabiano and Ganso; on the other, Alex.
Luis Fabiano and Ganso were easily marked and made next to no impact on the match. Alex organised his entire team, created several chances and scored both of Coritiba’s goals. He didn’t mark, he didn’t need to.
Against Ponte Preta on Thursday evening, Ganso played a good through ball for Luis Fabiano to score the only goal of the match, justifying their selection.
I LIKE FOOTBALL ME 