The Brazilian Premier League

This time last year, in an article entitled “Bom Senso F.C. & a battle for the soul of Brazilian football”, published on Brasil Wire, I wrote about the potential for a breakaway of Brazil’s major clubs from the Jurassic power structure that controls Brazilian football, headed by national and state federations.

In 1992, England’s largest clubs split from the Football League and created the Premier League: a standalone organisation that operated with the interests of clubs in mind. It a short time it became the richest league in world football. Brazilian clubs, by comparison, can claim to hold even more influence than their English counterparts (five teams in Brazil count their fan bases in the tens of millions – Flamengo, Corinthians, São Paulo, Palmeiras and Vasco da Gama), making the need for an independent league even greater.

Football at its best

This evening sees all ten of South America’s footballing nations embark on the long qualification journey to the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Two years and eighteen matchdays from now, four teams will have earned their places in the group stage draw, with a fifth going into an intercontinental play-off.

In the opinion of this journalist, the South American section of World Cup qualifying is some of the greatest entertainment available in the sport. Only the World Cup itself can compete.

The format of the competition is ideal. Ten teams are lumped together in one large pool, with every country plays each another twice, home and away. The guarantee of eighteen matches allows for the smaller nations to plan and prepare, not only in football terms but in financial terms. It is no secret that since this qualifying format was introduced in the 1990s, the quality of the national teams of Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela has increased greatly.

For the bigger nations, a sterner test of ability, squad depth and mental toughness is impossible. Argentina are guaranteed to play rivals Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia twice each. They are guaranteed trips to the altitude of Quito and La Paz. South American sides arrive at World Cups with a profound knowledge of their own strengths and weaknesses.

Besides the practical reasons, South American qualifiers bring countless ties seeped in history. Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, the continent’s footballing pioneers, have been playing against one another without interruption since the 1910s. Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay came along soon after.

The qualifying campaign’s first double-header contains some mouth-watering ties. However, none of the ten nations will be at full-strength. These matches are an entree to the feast of international football coming our way over the next two years.

The highlight of matchday one sees Chile face Brazil at the Estádio Nacional in Santiago.

It will be the first time the two teams have met in competition since 28 June last year, when Brazil eliminated Chile on penalties in the World Cup second round. A lot has changed since then.

Chile returned home from that defeat with their heads held high and turned their attentions to hosting the 2015 Copa América. They stormed to victory, beating Argentina in the final and winning their first ever piece of silverware.

Brazil, meanwhile, lost 7-1 to Germany.

With few changes, one should not expect any surprises from Jorge Sampaoli’s Chile team. It is largely the same side that played both the World Cup and the Copa América. However they are without Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Charles Aránguiz, who tore his Achilles tendon two months ago.

While the plaudits in this Chile side usually go to Arturo Vidal, Alexis Sánchez, Jorge Valdívia or Gary Medel, Sampaoli’s playing style is bound together by the industry of Aránguiz. His role in the team is just as important as anyone else’s, if not more so.

In their recent friendly against Paraguay, Chile looked vulnerable without Aránguiz. Sampaoli is likely to use Arturo Vidal in a deeper role to compensate, but the box-to-box quality of Aránguiz is irreplaceable.

To further complicate things, there are doubts over the fitness of Arturo Vidal and Alexis Sánchez. Both will start, but are unlikely to be 100%.

Brazil goes into this qualifying campaign with public opinion of the national team close to an all-time low. From the 7-1, Brazilian football went headfirst into Fifa-gate. Former president of the Brazilian FA (CBF) José Maria Marin was among the nine Fifa officials arrested in Zurich. He is currently awaiting extradition to the USA. His replacement at the CBF, Co-Conspirator #12, has refused to leave the country since Marin’s arrest.

Dunga’s team got people’s hopes up with an impressive run of wins in friendlies. Against such opposition as Colombia and France, Brazil flew to 10 wins in 10. But when push came to shove at the Copa América, Brazil crumbled.

To make matters worse, Neymar is suspended for Brazil’s two opening qualifiers after his involvement in a post-match scrap at the Copa. The past year has been ripe with examples of the national team’s dependency on the Barcelona forward. In a recent friendly against the USA, after testing a Neymar-less formation for only 45 minutes, Dunga capitulated and brought on his talisman to play the second half.

Colombia, also disappointing at the Copa América, go into this qualifying double-header desperate to reclaim some of the euphoria that surrounded their last World Cup qualifying campaign. They face Peru at home this evening in the intense Caribbean heat of Barranquilla.

Colombia’s coach José Pékerman has been forced into making changes to his starting eleven.

The big news is that Real Madrid’s James Rodríguez was cut from the squad due to injury. His replacement is likely to be Atlético Nacional’s Macnelly Torres, a classic playmaker with wonderful vision, though he has arrived with fitness problems of his own.

Full-backs Pablo Armero and Camilo Zúñiga, ever-present during Pékerman’s reign, both miss out. PSV’s Santiago Arias will get the nod at right-back, while Frank Fabra should start on the left despite making his international debut only last month.

The most interesting change will come in the centre of midfield. At the Copa América, with injuries to Abel Aguilar and Freddy Guarín, Pékerman played with two anchor men in midfield: Carlos Sánchez and Edwin Valencia. Defensively they were excellent. When they faced Brazil, Sánchez silenced Neymar as he has done before with Lionel Messi. The problem was they had no players who could pass out of midfield. With no-one to step out of that zone and play important angled passes to their attackers, Colombia were left flat and predictable. They scored only one goal in the entire tournament – and that came from a set-piece.

Aguilar is still out, but Guarín returns. However, Pékerman is likely to ignore the Internazionale man and hand a start to 22 year old Gustavo Cuéllar, a sturdy midfielder who reads the game well and has a good eye for a forward pass. The fact Cuéllar plays his club football in Barranquilla with Junior also cannot hurt.

 

Sending off and on again

Chapecoense have taken an early lead against Palmeiras. The visitors look rattled and the hosts push for a second goal. Palmeiras left-back Egídio is caught out of position and winger Willian Bárbio is put through one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Bárbio hesitates, Egídio recovers, goes to ground and steals the ball. Bárbio is left writhing in pain on the edge of the box. Referee Jaílson Freitas blows his whistle. Free-kick. Red card.

Palmeiras players are furious, while television pictures show viewers at home that Egídio did in fact win the ball cleanly and there was no foul. Another replay shows the assistant referee, the closest official to the incident, opting not to raise his flag. It would appear that the decision to send off Egídio came from Freitas himself, who was lagging behind the play, still inside the centre circle.

Four minutes of debate ensue on the pitch. Palmeiras players appeal to the referee while Chapecoense prepare to take their free-kick. Suddenly, Freitas gets a word in his earpiece and goes to speak to his assistant. The fourth official joins them. “He got the ball? Only the ball?” the referee is seen asking the fourth official. After receiving confirmation, Freitas overturns his decision. Goal-kick to Palmeiras.

Juca Kfouri and the CPIs

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Juca Kfouri, a living legend of Brazilian journalism. As editor of the iconic weekly (now monthly) sports magazine Placar and later of Playboy, Juca worked tirelessly throughout the 1980s and 1990s to investigate and expose corruption in Brazilian sport.

Being an investigative sports journalist in Brazil was a thankless task back then. Brazilian society treated the idea of corruption in sport as a wacky conspiracy theory, most likely due to decades of the public being sheltered from government corruption under the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and its tight grip on information.

This changed in 2001 when Congress opened two separate parliamentary inquiries (CPIs) into corruption in football. The first, in the lower house, aimed at the sponsorship contract between Nike and the Brazilian FA (CBF), leaked to the press in 1999 and suspected of “violating Brazilian sovereignty”. At the same time, another CPI was opened in the Senate, going after club presidents and the CBF itself.

Due to pressure from the so-called “football caucus”, the CPI in the lower house was not approved. Yet the Senate CPI survived and made a host of indictments of 17 important figures in the national game, including then CBF president Ricardo Teixeira, current and ex-presidents of Vasco da Gama, Flamengo, Santos and even national team coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo. None of these accusations were taken any further though, due to what Juca calls the “slow, morose” Brazilian judiciary. The national team’s success in the 2002 World Cup also served to deflect bad press away from the CBF.

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.

In the name of objectivity

After a little post-World Cup break and time dedicated to other projects, this blogger-turned-author is returning to the comforting and cathartic confines of this humble blog. I am also working a lot more in Portuguese these days, so if you stumble across some indecipherable text with strange accents and excessive punctuation on this blog, please, forgive me. 

I have yet to put pen to paper regarding my opinion on the Brazilian FA (CBF)’s appointment of Dunga as the new (old) national team coach. There are two reasons for this: one, is that I simply did not find the time, and two, is that even though Dunga may have flattered to deceive in his first spell in the job, even though he failed miserably as the coach of Internacional and has not managed a team since and even though he embodies the process of uglification the once-revered Brazilian national team has underwent from 1982 until today, we must restrain ourselves and remember he has just been appointed. In the name of objectivity, Dunga’s second attempt at the Brazil job must be evaluated in isolation and on its own merit. The coach had yet to actually do anything as the manager of the Brazilian national team (except failing to remember the names of Real Madrid’s James Rodríguez [“that Colombian kid, Jimenez”] and Milan’s iconic coach Arrigo Sacchi [“I have spoken with Enrico Sacchi”]) – so, naturally, I remained quiet.

This week, Dunga announced his first Brazil squad (see below) to dispute two friendlies at the beginning of September, against James “Jimenez” Rodríguez’s Colombia and Ecuador. Again, it is still too early to praise or criticise his work, as the squad selection is impossible to judge when separated from the context of the matches that will follow. The list does, however, give some clues as to how the Brazil side of the Second Age of Dunga will behave on the pitch. And starved of interesting topics to write about, that’s more than enough of an invitation for this journalist to speak his mind.

First impressions were largely encouraging, which was always going to be the case considering those who were skeptic about Dunga’s appointment had been creating wild nightmares for the past month, imagining Felipe Melo being handed the captain’s armband and Neymar being dropped in favour of someone more “disciplined”. The reality, as is so often the case, turned out not to be so dramatic after all.

Although Dunga has been cautious to put too much emphasis on the 7-1 defeat to Germany, towing the CBF party line, he did make a conscious effort to omit a significant group of the World Cup squad. From his 22-man group, only 10 are survivors from Felipão’s squad, with the obvious caveat that Thiago Silva is injured and unavailable.

However irrelevant those at the CBF seem to feel was the Germany loss, this process of renovation and blooding new players is important. Furthermore, Dunga did not take things too far, players such as Luiz Gustavo, Hulk, Oscar and Willian all remain in the squad despite coming in for criticism last month, and all four can play important roles in this new team.

Another positive aspect was the players called up for the centre of midfield. One of the biggest criticisms of Dunga’s first attempt at the national team job was his side’s complete lack of midfield articulation and creativity. While every other team in world football made sure to play midfielders who were able to defend and attack (and most importantly, complete a five-yard pass), Dunga’s Brazil put their faith in hard men, essentially converted centre-backs who knew how to tackle. In the World Cup in South Africa, while Spain had Xavi, Iniesta and Xabi Alonso, Brazil had Felipe Melo and Gilberto Silva.

As well as maintaining Luiz Gustavo, Fernandinho and Ramires, all well-rounded midfielders, Dunga called up Elias of Corinthians (formerly of Sporting and Atlético Madrid) who is energetic, technical and a proficient marker. He also has the option of playing Oscar or Philippe Coutinho in that deeper role, all of these are positive signs.

That leads on to another interesting feature of this squad: the lack of a fixed centre-forward and an abundance of unpredictable attacking midfield threat. The selection indicates that Dunga may well revisit the work of ex-Brazil coach Mano Menezes, who experimented with a strikerless formation, playing Neymar as a mobile centre-forward. There is a worry that Dunga could try to shoehorn one of his players into a traditional centre-forward role, which would be an error. Neymar always needs the freedom to move into channels and drop deep when he wants to; Hulk’s effectiveness comes as a direct option down either flank; Diego Tardelli started his career as an out-and-out centre-forward but now plays much deeper, usually on the right; young Ricardo Goulart is an extremely interesting talent, but already at Cruzeiro he has shown he is not a pure centre-forward, instead he is more of an attacking midfielder, arriving late into the box to score.

With some new faces and Neymar at centre-forward, a potential XI to start the game against Colombia.

Last month I mentioned that only once has a country won the World Cup with a squad made up of a majority of foreign-based players (France in 1998) and it seems to have really resonated with Dunga, who is, of course, a long-time reader of this blog. The coach has made a conscious effort to select more domestic-based outfield players and has called up some interesting names and perhaps missed a few.

All of the domestic-based players in the squad have done enough individually to deserve the callup, although in some cases I’m unsure about the long-term benefit of some of the players being involved in the setup. It is hard to see Diego Tardelli, Atlético Mineiro’s striker-turned-playmaker, still being involved in the team come next year’s Copa América. Even Elias and Éverton Ribeiro, excellent as they are in Brazil, give the impression that they could suffer with the competition for places in those midfield spots.

Corinthians’ centre-back Gil, especially with the absence of Thiago Silva, strikes me as a wise selection. He has some modest experience in Europe with French side Valenciennes, but has improved greatly since his return to Brazil, with great positioning, technique and a threat at set-pieces.

I was delighted to see Cruzeiro’s Ricardo Goulart get the call, as he is certainly a player who could go on to do great things for Brazil. As alluded to earlier, he is an attacking midfielder who likes to play just off a principal striker. He is clever, strong, good in the air, has a natural eye for goal and he keeps getting better and better. Brazil do not have any other player in that same mould, so seeing him in the national team setup is exciting.

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.

Ethics and egos

With Diego Costa’s choice to represent the Spanish national team and the non-story in England regarding the potential naturalisation of Adnan Januzaj, the subject of footballers’ nationality has been heavily discussed over the past month.

By the letter of the law, Diego Costa is eligible to be selected for Spain, having gained Spanish citizenship earlier this year. As a human being and a professional, he is free to choose which national team he would like to represent, and the only valid debate is over the Spanish football federation’s ethics in deciding to call up the player.

Diego Costa was not born in Spain, he has no Spanish parentage and did not arrive in the country as a refugee. He was first brought to Spain in 2007 by Atlético Madrid, who signed him from SC Braga in Portugal for a fee of €1.5 million.

His situation is different to that of ex-Stuttgart forward Cacau, who was born in São Paulo and famously represented the German national team over twenty times. Cacau migrated to Germany when he was 18 years old (of his own volition) and managed to earn a living playing for a fifth division German club before working his way up the ladder.

Furthermore, Diego Costa has already played twice for Brazil. He was part of the squad that played friendly matches against Italy and Russia in March, and he made substitute appearances in both games. The reasons behind his switch to Spain are based on his disappointment at only getting 35 minutes over those two friendlies and subsequently not being selected for the Confederations Cup.

The entire purpose of international football is to stage matches and tournaments between groups of players who identify themselves with the country they are representing. Diego is well within his rights to be angry with the CBF and change his allegiance, but that doesn’t mean Spain is right to select him. It would be akin to England calling up Januzaj, an athlete paid for and brought to the country for his talent.

If players are going to continue chopping and changing allegiances and crucially, if national associations are going to continue enabling this behaviour by selecting these players, then perhaps we should scrap international football altogether.

Ethics aside, I have been somewhat confused at the CBF’s handling of the situation. Since the appointments of Felipão and Carlos Alberto Parreira, the party line has been about patriotism and nationalism – the famous Brazilian amor à patria – yet they have persistently pursued Diego Costa, someone who was very outspoken about the Seleção. Felipão’s statement yesterday about Diego being cut from the squad sounded like a manager attempting to heal his bruised ego. Diego Costa can’t quit, because he’s fired. At this stage, the CBF is looking silly.

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 8^th December and the 2014 state championships are scheduled to kick off on 12^th 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.

Santos’s Walter Montillo (blue) during a Campeonato Paulista match this year. Photo: Gazeta Press

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.

From AmorimCartoons

Felipão may be a ten-year step in the wrong direction

As expected, the CBF have appointed Luiz Felipe Scolari, Felipão, as the new head coach of the seleção, replacing Mano Menezes. The clues were laid out for all to see when Felipão was appointed as a consultant to the Ministry of Sport at the end of September, not long after leaving his post as head coach of Palmeiras.

While on the one hand Mano Menezes is cold, serious and thoughtful, Felipão is charismatic, cheery, and has a far better connection with the Brazilian public. Considering the magnitude of the task of leading Brazil to the 2014 World Cup, Felipão’s personality fits the bill.