Brazil Enter New Era After ‘Lost Years’

PRIOR to their friendly game against England, yesterday, Brazil have only won two of their first six South American World Cup qualifying matches and were beaten 1-0 at home by Argentina in November.

It was late February 2022 when Tite revealed he would be stepping down as Brazil head coach at the end of the Qatar World Cup.

That, in theory, gave the Brazilian FA (CBF) plenty of time to work on his replacement. As it turned out, though, it wasn’t enough. Since then, the Selecao have had two caretaker managers - Ramon Menezes and Fernando Diniz - and another manager they assumed had been hired and publicly announced it but wasn’t Carlo Ancelotti.

When they took on England yesterday at Wembley, fans were asking if Brazil will finally have in Dorival Jr a permanent manager in charge, putting an end to what was largely perceived back home as “a lost year”. “That was the result of much disorganisation and also some arrogance to believe that any coach would just come running [to take the job] because it’s the Brazilian national team,” former Brazil international Walter Casagrande, now a popular football pundit, told BBC Sport before the match at Wembley.

In 2023, the Selecao finished a year with more defeats than wins for the first time since 1963 - in total, they lost five times, drew once and won just three times in nine games, breaking several negative records along the way, including losing a home World Cup qualifier - versus Argentina - and three consecutive qualifiers - versus Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina - for the first time.