Tite stays on as Brazil coach:
RIO DE JANEIRO. — An agreement has been reached, and Tite (pictured right) is set to continue as Brazil coach, with his new contract set to take him through the 2022 Soccer World Cup.
It is surely the right decision. When he took over two years ago, a third of the Russia 2018 qualification campaign had been played and Brazil were down in sixth place. There was real concern that they would lose their proud record of being the only country to have appeared at every World Cup. Instead, they coasted to Russia, where they could easily have gone further than the quarterfinals. Their 2-1 defeat to Belgium was a string contender for game of the tournament, and it could have gone the other way with a bit of luck.
It was the only defeat that Tite’s Brazil have suffered in a competitive game. The lone other reverse came in a friendly against Argentina, staged in Australia, where Brazil fielded an experimental side. The results, and the manner in which they were achieved, clearly justify Tite staying on in his current role.
The only impediment was whether he wanted to continue. Here he found himself in an awkward position.
A huge part of the Tite story is his capacity to learn — and an important component of this process has been the time he spent studying topclass European football. But for years he said that he would not be interested in working in Europe. He could not, he said, imagine himself achieving excellence in a second language.
He has perhaps softened on this over the past few months, and with obvious motives. He could, of course, return to Brazilian club football. But, after working with the calibre of players available to the national team coach, that would be a giant step down.
Had Brazil won the World Cup, then the temptation to try his luck in Europe surely would have existed, and, presumably, there would have been no shortage of offers. But with Brazil failing to reach the semifinals, he has not been swamped with offers, and so his best course of action is to stay put in a job where he has plenty of unfinished business.
In the past three World Cups and the past three Copa Americas, Brazil have only once made it to the last four — and no one needs reminding of the result. Next year, Brazil host the Copa America. In a tournament in which Paul Pogba, Luka Modric and Kevin De Bruyne starred, Brazil’s attempt to shoehorn Philippe Coutinho into the role of box-to-box midfielder was not a success. Could Barcelona’s new signing Arthur be the man to get Brazil’s midfield ticking?