Brazil lacks trademark firepower
This club isn’t even close to predecessors, as a punchless effort clearly shows.
Pele used to wear the Brazil No. 10 jersey. The number was later inherited by the likes of Rivelino, Zico, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho.
These were more than soccer players. They were magicians, creative geniuses who were as much artists as they were athletes.
The present-day owner of the No. 10 shirt, Neymar, was at the Rose Bowl on Saturday when Brazil opened play in the Copa America Centenario with a scoreless draw against Ecuador.
Only Neymar wasn’t on the field.
Neymar was instead sharing a luxury suite with Justin Bieber, as Brazilian officials decided they would rather him play in the Olympics, a glorified youth tournament with minimal prestige in the world of soccer.
In Neymar’s absence, the No. 10 jersey went to Lucas Lima, an industrious but unspectacular midfielder who played only the last four minutes.
It’s not as if there were other options.
Brazil doesn’t produce players like that any more. If Neymar represents anything, it’s the country’s past, not present.
The game was predictably unwatchable, save for the handful of instances when Brazilian winger Willian whipped balls into the penalty box after blowing by his marker on the right flank.
With Brazil aligned in a conservative 4-1-4-1 formation, Ecuador countered by playing a high back line, resulting in an overcrowded midfield that prevented either team from doing anything offensively.
The best chances for both teams came early.
Ecuadorian forward Miler Bolanos pounced on a loose ball outside of the penalty box in the fifth minute and uncorked a shot that barely missed the right post.
A minute later, Brazilian midfielder Coutinho met a cross by Willian, only for his redirection to be sent over the crossbar by goalkeeper Esteban Dreer.
By the 26th minute, the announced crowd of 53,158 became restless and started doing the wave.
This is the kind of game that was anticipated by Ecuadorian Coach Gustavo Quinteros.
“Soccer evolves,” he said the previous day in Spanish. “Maybe the people don’t like that they no longer see a beautiful game from Brazil, but it’s a very complicated game for opponents.”
That’s what Brazilian soconly cer has become: Complicated.
Like a game of chess. Or like an Andrew Friedman team-building strategy.
The two teams combined for only three shots on goal in the opening half. Three Brazilian players received yellow cards in the first 45 minutes.
Ecuador thought it went ahead in the 67th minute, but the ball was controversially ruled to have crossed the left end line before Bolanos fired a slanted shot that trickled into the goal.
Brazil’s lone striker, Jonas, was invisible.
This was the stadium in which Brazil won the 1994 World Cup. The dreadful game that unfolded Saturday was part of that team’s legacy.
Midfielder Elias recalled watching the tournament as a 10-year-old.
“Ninety-four is one of the reasons I’m here today,” Elias said through an interpreter.
The effect of the tournament was profound and not because of how it inspired boys like Elias. The result validated Brazil’s decision to emphasize pragmatism over aestheticism. A national team that was once admired for its wide-open, attacking style has grown only more conservative since.
Once the world’s top producer of attacking talent, Brazil is now better known for creating players in the mold of the defensive midfielder and captain of that 1994 team, Dunga, the current coach.
Over the last couple of decades, the trend was concealed, to some degree, by the couple of offensive stars Brazil did have.
The team in 1994 had Romario and Bebeto. The 2002 squad that won the country’s most recent World Cup had Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho.
Now, it’s become impossible to hide.