Brazil's Painful Postmortem

Losing two straight matches, conceding 10 goals in the final two matches isn’t the way you want to end your World Cup especially when you are playing at home. Tears of sorrow, the voices of disappointment surrounded every Brazil fans all around the world. It was a massive let down for the Brazilians considering they had high hopes for this team to win the World Cup for the sixth time. Now, it’s all done and dusted. Considering how eventful it was leading up to this World Cup, this certainly wasn’t a football festival the Brazilians have wished for.

After all those horrific moments on the pitch, now it’s the time to sit down and analyze what could have been undo to get better results. At the end of the day, we need to face the truth - This Brazil team is not good enough. It’s unfair to say this is the worst Brazilian team by judging on their 1-7 defeat to Germany. But this team is definitely not the best they had over the years.

Let’s start with their manager. Luiz Felipe Scolari was the guy that led the Brazil team to their last World Cup victory in 2002. The same man that took over the Portugal national team in 2003 to 2008, leading them to a fourth place in the 2006 World Cup and a runner-up in the 2004 European Championship.

Why do I mentioned all those achievements? Because he is a highly experienced manager in international football, but Scolari’s tactical awareness and stubbornness at this year’s tournament was part of the factor that contribute to this downfall.

His decision to continue playing Fred was the biggest decision that most football fans doesn’t seem to understand. Fred has been struggling since the opening match yet Scolari doesn’t seem to think of an alternative plan to better the Brazilian attack. It was a team that struggle offensively. They need their defenders to contribute the goals through free kicks and corners when it comes to the knockout stages. When Neymar was sidelined for the semi-final match, a lot of people expect Scolari to make some adjustments to the team to get the best out of the players he had. Probably by giving more playing time for players like William and Ramires to make an impact. But sadly, all he does is substituting Bernard for Neymar, a man to man substitution and decides to stick to his exact same lineup he had up front that he had used for the previous matches despite proven ineffective.

It is probably harsh to just criticize a few players for the poor results. But let’s take a look at the four defenders that starts against Germany in that 7 goal humiliation. Marcelo, Dante, David Luiz, and Maicon. What do they have in common? These four players are Champions League winners, the highest club competition in the world. They have all play in the final of the Champions League for their respective clubs. They played for top European clubs like Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern Munich. Judging on their CVs, these are highly experienced players. But what we see on the pitch was absolutely shambolic defending. School boy errors being committed again and again by these highly experienced players. Even though Thiago Silva was suspended for this match, somebody among these back four should have step up and stop the rot when Germany was up by two or three goals.

Brazil always had their iconic no.9 striker playing up front, dribbling past defenders to score goals freely. Ronaldo, Romario, Pele have all excelled in that no.9 role during their playing career. That’s not the case this time. You have Fred, wearing the no.9 jersey this time playing as the lone striker. But his performance was absolutely horrible. Jo, a player whom Scolari substituted him for Fred in a number of games was another disaster to watch. It was Brazil’s failure to find a no.9 player role at this year’s World Cup that fails to struck the venom into the opponent’s defence. But it all led back to the previous point of Scolari’s tactical stubbornness as he could have done something when his strikers are not giving him the end results he was expecting. Perhaps by playing Neymar as a false no.9 to give him more freedom to attack instead of playing him at the left wing position.

Looking forward to the short term - the next 4 years leading to the next World Cup in 2018, whoever steps up as the new Brazil manager needs to start thinking about his future line-up. A lot of these current 23 players will be in their mid-30s in 2018. These players won’t be returning for the next World Cup. So, perhaps it’s time to start the building and give young players a chance to shine.

Brazil, being one of the powerhouses in football have always have a great pool of young talented players. Right now, the job of the Brazil FA is to unearth these players and making sure they are ready in four years time. The future team should build around both Neymar and Oscar as these two players looked the most impressive of all Brazilians at this year’s tournament and both are just 22 and 23 years old respectively.

In sports, a great team is not solely decided on the number of titles they have won. Sometimes, the way the team recovers from the worst and make it to the top of the world. It’s never too early to start the rebuilding process. The stage is set for Brazil to show to the world they are able to recover and be a strong dominant force once again.