Reports say Guardiola would leap at Brazil job

RIO DE JANEIRO: Former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola (pic) would leap at the chance to coach Brazil, who sacked Mano Menezes this week, Lance sports daily reported on Saturday.

“The Brazilian national side is the only team he would be ready to coach tomorrow” if given the chance, an unnamed Guardiola confidant told Lance group founder and chairman Walter de Mattos Jr, who penned the article linking the former Barca boss with the post.

Guardiola insists he will see out his sabbatical in the US after leaving the Nou Camp last summer.

But the source said he would do a good job with the five-time world champions, who are now on the lookout for a successor to Manezes, fired on Friday barely 18 months away from Brazil’s hosting of the next World Cup.

“If he coaches the Selecao, they will win the World Cup - you tell that to the chairman of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF),” the insider said.

The CBF says it will unveil a successor to Manezes, who failed to deliver the Olympic title at the London Games last summer when Brazil fell to Mexico in the final.

The new man, if he does start in January, will have six months to fashion a side capable of lifting the Confederations Cup on home soil which serves as a dress rehearsal to the 2014 World Cup.

Lance said a foreign choice would be controversial and a factor therefore against Guardiola.

“But currently there is no coach in Brazil – even among the good ones we have – capable of promoting not just a rejuvenation of the squad but carrying out a revolution to influence all Brazilian football from the grassroots up.

“That’s just what Barca did ... putting the emphasis on the jogo bonito or beautiful game which serves as a hallmark of Barca and also Brazil.

Guardiola is a potential target for AC Milan while his name came up prior to the appointment – and then this week’s sacking – of Roberto di Matteo at Chelsea.

Yet he was also mentioned as early as last summer as a possible eventual successor to the hapless Menezes.

But Guardiola’s agent Josep Maria Orobitg told Lance there had been no contact between the Brazilians and his client.

“I have had no call for contact whatsoever from the CBF. I speak regularly to Pep and he has not given me any instructions to negotiate with anyone for a possible contract,” Orobitg said.

Also in the frame is Brazil’s 2002 World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, along with Tite of Corinthians and Santos’ Muricy Ramalho.