Looking at the fixtures and recent form it’s extremely difficult to call this world cup.
Germany are in a rut and just can’t seem to get out of 2’nd gear. The probability of winning 4 major tournaments on the bounce is nigh on impossible making Spain an outside bet in addition to the fact that the squad is tired and aging.
Brazil just don’t look like a Brazilian team having sacrificed flair and creativity for size and functionality. Argentina look incredible and Di Maria’s transition to a more central role will help them.
France look like an outside bet, Their midfield of Pogba, Matuidi and Cabaye is probably the best. Looking at the way it could all play out if they get past Germany you expect them to beat Brazil given they’re Brazil’s boogey team.
Argentina to win for me. BTW Argentina to win and Muller to be top scorer is 1051:1. Worth a bet.
This is not an accurate assessment of Brazil. Brazil has not been a “flair” team for the past 20 years, modern Brazilian football is based on playing a counterattacking game using big, fast athletes who are comfortable without possession. The days of Toninho Cerezo, Didi, and Socrates are gone.
Julian Green is not good enough for the world cup. He’s featured in more games for country than the first team of his club. That should say it all. Don’t know why Jurgen jumped the gun here by picking him for the squad. He probably won’t feature at all.
I would say that 2010 Brazil was mostly physical. But that’s because, in my opinion, Dunga was the worst coach ever.
Asides from that, the style changed a lot, depending on the coach and available players. I’d say 97 to about 2006 had some flair most of the time. It was not like the guys you mentioned because the game got faster but, watching them closely, I have no doubt that players such as Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Romario and Rivaldo could make more interesting and dangerous things with the ball than Socrates or Cerezo. Those four were all very complete - strong at passing, dribbling, scoring or whatever they had to do. And that got reflected in the team.
Actually, many people thought Socrates’ younger brother, Raí, was the best player in the family - he choked/underperformed at the 94 WC and got benched.
Of course, style depends on the players to some extent. Now we have good defensive players, while the offense is worse than it used to be. So the style will reflect that to some extent.
By the way, I have no idea why 80% of brazilian top players names’ start with an R.
Was going to post something along those lines. 2002 was a beast of a team with the three R’s. Brazil tried to go back to their roots when they appointed Menezes? but i think his results were not upto par and they need a good showing since it’s at home so they went with the experience of Scolari.
Anyway i don’t like this Brazil team, People world over tune it to watch the Samba boys take the pich not because they have any affliation with Brazil but because of the sheer swagger in their play. The attacking fearlessness and the fact that they do it with a smile. A lot of teams have dominated their sports like the Brazilian national team, India / Australia at Cricket, Bulls / Lakers in BBall etc etc but no one has done it with nonchalant attitude of the Brazilans. This team has no swagger, no style, no flamboyance apart from Neymar who will become a beast of a player BTW.
And Colombia could probably cause a surprise, If they finish top they will potentially meet England who they could knock out before meeting Brazil. They have a really nice team, Jackson Martinez stats are touching those of Falcao when he was at Porto
The 2002 Brazil team was far from the creative attacking teams of yesteryear, despite having a lot of great talent in forward roles. However Brazilian football has intrinsically changed from the “joga bonito” mythology. Brazil doesn’t produce players like the guys I mentioned anymore, and that’s in large part due to the emphasis on speed, size, and athleticism in a counterattacking context. They continue to produce great players for sure, but I think that it is unrealistic to expect Brazil to meet the joga bonito mythology.
Isildurr: The issue is that today we really don’t have players talented enough to do that “magic”. I disliked Dunga because he deliberately chose strength and some kind of weird loyalty thing instead of skill.
Scolari doesn’t have as much choice. Maybe he could get Ronaldinho in shape by showing confidence in him early on. As for the rest, there’s no that much to change, in my opinion, and changes wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
It’s really hard for a coach to apply a style to a national squad, since they practice together so much less than club teams. Scolari’s strength is probably more geared towards firing up the players than tactical brilliance and maybe that’s whats needed for short tourneys such as the World Cup or Confed Cup.
I don’t think Menezes was trying to go back to the roots (he’s a pretty defensive coach - coached my local team for a couple years) but, compared to Dunga, he was more focused on a constructive game.
Menezes wasn’t doing well, and so the soccer rulers decided to go all out in trying to appease people for a World Cup at home. They called Scolari, who was doing very poorly at Palmeiras, because he has a lot of support for winning 2002. They also called Parreira as his assistant - this is the coach that won 94. Basically, to whoever does not follow soccer very closely (but do so at the World Cup), that’s a dream duo. What’s not to like? More of a PR stunt than a strategy in my view.
Brazilian soccer is pretty imediatist. 2002 won. Let’s keep doing exactly the same thing. 2006 was all parties and lost, so let’s put some military-style guy in charge. And on and on… If Manchester United was brazilian, Ferguson would probably last 6 months in there.