The Brazilian flag still flies high.Of the four Brazilian teams that made it to the Club World Cup- three (Palmeiras,Butafogo and Flamengo) have now been eliminated. Butafogo and Flamengo did not reach the last 16.
Palmeiras couldn’t make it past Chelsea-despite the chaos that rules the blues at the moment.
Fluminense are the last man standing.They,despite being sixth after 11 games in the Brasileiro Série A,and having the oldest player in the tournament (44-year-old goalkeeper Fabio) on their team beat the up until now unbeatable Al Hilal to reach the quarter finals.
Does this mean that Brazil is going to do really really well (at last) at the Club Actual World Cup in 2026 ?
No according to football pundit Tim Vickery. He points out…
“What the performances of the Brazilian clubs highlight is the strength of national teams like Colombia and Uruguay.“Palmeiras, Botafogo, Flamengo and Fluminense… a lot of their best players are not Brazilians.The way that European football treats Brazil, Brazilian football now treats the rest of South America. You have got two of the midfielders for Colombia – Richard Rios of Palmeiras and Jhon Arias of Fluminense.
Gustavo Gomez, a centre-back for Paraguay, plays for Palmeiras and Jefferson Savarino, who plays for Venezuela, made the goal for Botafogo against PSG.
That’s the model – Brazil sells its best players to Europe and one of the ways they replenish them is from neighbouring countries in South America.”