Tite takes on most daunting job
THE Brazil head coach was in tears when he was overlooked for the job in 2014 – but his opportunity finally came two years ago and he has seized it in style.
Few children anticipate Christmas with quite the same bug-eyed glee palpable in the Brazilian advertising sector when the World Cup rolls around.
This nation of 200 million souls lives for football, and football sells – especially when the Seleçao are involved.
Neymar, naturally, is the gilded kingpin of the scene, and the cast list this year has expanded to include Gabriel Jesus, Willian and Philippe Coutinho, other notable Brazilian stepover-envoys who look set to shine in Russia.
Yet the star of the summer’s most memorable television spot is not actually a player at all. The advert, for a major bank, features a rousing patchwork of aphorisms delivered by the Brazil coach, Adenor Leonardo Bacchi.
It is pitched as “a team talk for all Brazilians”, and while one might reasonably wonder what exactly all that has to do with current accounts, the lofty tone neatly captures the 57-year-old’s standing in his country.
He may be just two years into the job but Bacchi – universally known as Tite – is already well on the way to achieving national-treasure status after engineering a remarkable turnaround in Brazil’s fortunes.
The Seleçao were in a parlous state when he took the reins, still haunted by the spectre of the harrowing 7-1 semifinal loss to Germany and hamstrung by a lack of vision from on high.
Fresh impetus was needed and the Brazilian football federation finally decided that Tite, who had been reduced to tears upon being overlooked in 2014, was the man to conjure it. That faith was repaid in double-quick time: Brazil embarked on an eight-match winning run, becoming the first team to book their place in Russia. There has been no let-up since.
Born into a family of modest means in Brazil’s temperate south, Tite was first spotted by another future Brazil coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, on whose recommendation the youngster won a professional contract with Caxias. “I never dreamed of being a manager,” he wrote recently, “but as a young man who still lived for football, I went down the path of coaching.”
Fatherly, enthusiastic and protective when the occasion demands, he is beloved by the players, while his collaborative approach behind the scenes – he has a small army of backroom staff – has also won him admirers. He goes about his job with seriousness, but also with a smile, which goes a long way. “I would kill for Tite,” Marcelo said last year, and he would probably have 22 accomplices if it ever came to that. From a distance, all of this might seem slightly surreal. This, after all, is a manager who has never managed outside Brazil, let alone in one of Europe’s top leagues. Yet while Tite might be a late bloomer on the world stage, his quality has never been in doubt.
“I’m not surprised he’s doing so well,” Scolari, who led Brazil to World Cup glory in 2002, told The Daily Telegraph. “Of course, the Brazil job is bigger than any club job, but Tite has always been a good coach. Always.”
His CV, which boasts two league titles, one Copa Libertadores and a Club World Cup (memorably sealed against Chelsea) with Corinthians, certainly attests to that.
The question now is whether he can take Brazil all the way, banishing what he calls their “little ghost” – the lingering mental scars of the Germany defeat. “I think they are in very good shape,” added Scolari. “The team is really well organised; every player has a role that suits his skills. There’s a good team spirit in the group. So, I see a Seleçao that can go far. They can reach the final.”