Dunga is not important

So Dunga is the new Brazilian coach. I personally find it curious how much importance people give to the national team’s coach after a World Cup. Who doesn’t remember the English drama with Sven before the WC and the Scolari media attack right after? I can understand the pressure because the World Cup was close, but now? I know we will have the Copa América next year but it is a minor competition for a national team. I know that the Euro Cup is very praised for the Europeans, and maybe the Copa América is very important to the Argentineans, since they have a historical lead against Brazil in the competition (recently Brazil won 3 of the last 4 competitions).

The fact is that the UEFA Euro is a lot harder to conquer than the Copa América. Look at these numbers: 35 titles are divided to 3 nations only, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. At the Euro Cup you will have 12 titles divided to 9 nations. Europe has much more countries than South America thus Brazil will never give much importance to Copa América. What about Dunga’s role? Trust me, the new coach is not important right now.

The CBF (Football Brazilian Confederation) is now giving a fast response to the Brazilian general feeling: we need people of strong will at the team. Not only players (once Roberto Carlos, Cafu, Ronaldinho & Co. didn’t have much), but starting with the coach. Dunga was the icon of will power and determination in his time being the captain of that 1994 lackluster team. He already declared that he will present a very offensive team against Norway (Aug, 16th) in response to the critics of the Parreira defensive style. But that’s all. He won’t be the 2010 coach unless he performs some miracle, winning everything in his path. This is how the coaching position works here in Brazil. He will be OK until his team start losing 2 or 3 matches, which is not difficult once he will be experimenting with local players with little international experience. Not only that but he is a noob as coach so how can anyone expect him to take a mythic team as the Seleção and keep the job until 2010? Not gonna happen, my friends.

The ideal path for the team would be to have as many coaches as needed until after the Euro 2008. By then Big Phil would be satisfied about the Portuguese job and he would accept back the position to coach Brazil for 2010. Of course there are other good coaches, but for the Brazilian tradition of having big individual stars we will definitely need a man that can bring the great talents together as a real team, like he has proven to be capable of in 2002. All I can do now is cross my fingers and wait until the end of the Euro 2008.