World Cup 2018: How coach Tite has brought Brazil into the modern age
World Cup Match of the Day, 9 July 2014. Argentina have just beaten the Netherlands on penalties to reach the final. But everyone is still trying to assimilate the scarcely credible result from the previous day’s semi-final.
Hosts Brazil have been thrashed 7-1 by Germany. What happens now? “Will Brazil now want a root-and-branch overhaul of their system?” asks Mark Chapman.
“I hope so,” I replied - but feared that after a 10-day period of mourning, things would chug along much as before.
And that is how it turned out. Soon after the World Cup, Brazil made the bizarre decision to reappoint former midfielder Dunga as coach.
He had been in charge from 2006-2010. His only other coaching experience was an unsuccessful few months with Brazilian club side Internacional. He was not a man to carry out any root-andbranch overhaul. His appointment was little more than a denial of reality - although it showed an acceptance that there would be plenty of critical fire.
If we are under attack, went the thinking of the Brazilian FA, then Dunga is our man. A snarling figure, weighed down by the apparent belief that the world was a conspiracy against him, Dunga would fight fire with fire.
Two years later, with a third of the 2018 qualifiers played, Brazil were down in sixth place, outside the qualification slots. There was real fear that the country would lose its proud record of appearing in every World Cup finals.
Dunga was under pressure. His big hope was the Rio Olympics. If he could take the team to their first football gold medal, he would shore up his position and buy himself some more time.
It might have happened. Instead, shortly before the Olympics there was an extra version of the Copa America, staged in the United States, to celebrate the centenary of the tournament.
Dunga’s team drew with Ecuador, lost to Peru and were eliminated in the group phase. The axe fell, and Corinthians coach Tite - the popular choice to have taken over in 2014 - was belatedly given the job. There were few changes in personnel. Paulinho, then based in China, was recalled - a controversial move that proved a resounding success. And Tite gambled on the teenage Gabriel Jesus to fill the problem position at centre-forward - and was immediately rewarded.
Those two aside, the same squad that had been at the disposal of Dunga achieved vastly different results under Tite.
A tricky qualification campaign turned into a breeze. Tite’s team won 10 games, drew two, scored 30 goals and conceded just three. And they have continued that form in warm-up friendlies against European opposition. They go to Russia with a justifiable place among the tournament favourites.
-BBC