‘Used to coaches changing even three-four times a year’
KOLKATA: In an ideal world, the coaches of the youth teams and the head coach of the senior national team should be working together.
When Brazil coach Carlos Amadeu said this, it was to point out how far from the ideal world Brazil is.
In the time Amadeu has been in charge of this development squad that will meet Germany in an under-17 World Cup quarter-final on Sunday, the Brazil senior team has changed coaches with Tite replacing Dunga.
Between 2014, when Luiz Felipe Scolari was in charge, and now, the ‘Selecao’ have had three coaches.
In the four years preceding that, the list had Dunga and Mano Menezes before Scolari took over.
“There are clubs that change coaches four-five times a year. We are used to this,” said Amadeu when asked if this revolving-door situation with senior national team coaches makes his job with the teenagers more difficult.
“It is not up to me to com- ment on things I have no control over. But I have a history of coaching clubs in Brazil for 20 years, especially their youth teams. “You teach young players by making them hear, watch and getting them to experience situations. And then you choose the best players who, you think, can keep going and serve the seni o r team… Paulinho, for instance, was doing that first for the under-15s, then the youth teams at his club (Vasco da Gama) and now their senior team and with us,” said Amadeu, 52. Coaches and other members of the team management of Japan, England and Germany have spoken at length on how their football associations look at getting development teams to be on the same page with their senior national teams.
In Brazil, things may not be that organised but what makes them five-time men’s world champions and thrice winners at this level is perhaps how as a society they have bought into football as an idea, a way of life and certainly a passport to a better life.
“This generation has really good players but then Brazil always produces good players, this is just another one. If they fetch a good market value it is because of what they produce on the pitch.
“Scouts watch all games these days, what they look for in a World Cup is confirmation of the ability that they have seen at the game’s highest stage,” said Amadeu.
When a youth coach is confident of his country’s ability to keep producing talent, maybe you don’t need an ideal world to be successful.