Julio Cesar has denied those JJ reports. Maybe CBF just leaking some fake news to see what general reaction is. Or maybe more likely, JJ agent trying to get him the job ... or trying to get Flamengo to move for him.
Well, we do know that CBF will be meeting with coaches soon, not just Ancelotti's representatives or JJ. A recap of what's coming up: U20s: The World Cup draw will be March 31 (next Friday). I'll open a World Cup thread for that. Ramon Menezes will have a training period in April and then call up the team for the World Cup. The U20 World Cup starts May 20 and the final is scheduled for June 11. For the senior team: Next friendlies are in June. The FIFA international window is from June 12 to June 20. Nothing official yet, but Brazil is expected to play 2 friendlies, one of them probably in Manaus, with a special green jersey to raise awareness for environmental causes. Call-up would be May 26 if it follows the same schedule as the March call-up. No competitive matches until WCQ in September. Behind the scenes: As we know CBF are going to actively work on picking a coach and a director for the senior team. The current President will be focusing on this after the April 6 women's match between Brazil and England. It's unclear how the timing of the next friendlies will affect the search if at all. Any candidate in Europe will be under contract until May 28 or June 4 depending on their season (and the convocação would be May 26). It's unclear how other things behind the scenes are moving forward, like scheduling the friendlies and selling TV rights. For March, TV rights were sold to Brazil, but not to international markets.
Reuters reported a few hours ago that the U-20 WC draw was postponed - this is related to the host Indonesia not wanting to allow Israel to play in the tournament. Lots of uncertainty. In regards to our next friendlies, do you guys know why don’t we play against Germany? They don’t have the Euro qualifiers games.
I finally watched some highlights, and Morocco deserved to win. As Ombak said, Brazil had its own chances which could have brought a draw or a win. What worries me, based on post-match commentary, is that the defense was the weakest sector. Say what you want about either Dunga (at least 2006-2010) or Tite, but both of them built very defensively solid teams. I have a detailed list of both of their tenures' statistics and if Dunga 2006-2010 was solid in terms of defense and goals allowed, Tite was even better. Granted, it's only the first match in a new 4-year cycle, but I hope that either Ramon Menezes or whoever becomes the actual manager fixes the defense. Defense wins championships; this is a maxim I picked up from living in the United States and watching U.S. professional sports (especially the NBA, when I was younger). It applies to futebol as well. Of note is the fact that whereas Dunga 2006-2010 started out with a draw (1-1 vs. Norway), whereas Mano Menezes 2010-2012 started out with a win (2-0 vs. United States), wheras Dunga 2014-2016 started out with a win (1-0 vs. Colombia), this is the first post-World Cup match Brazil has lost since.... 2002, when Scolari's Brasil lost 1-0 to Paraguay in the first match after the Penta. As you all remember, Brazil under Tite won its first match - a 3-0 victory over Ecuador at Quito. I *still* favor Abel Ferreira as Tite's successor. It appears less and less likely it'll happen, although I read over the weekend that Carlo Ancelotti does welcome the idea of managing Brazil but only if Real Madrid fires him. Whether or not that'll happen, that I can't say.
The good in this is that it gives CBF more time to finally sign the manager they want to be Tite's successor. Ramon Menezes may have a promising future ahead of him, but barring an unexpected turn of events, I don't see Ramon managing Brazil in 2026. As such, (crossing fingers for Abel Ferreira) let's see who is the manager CBF does sign. The bad in this is that with only two further exhibition matches before the start of 2026 World Cup qualifying, continuity will be limited. While recycling and transitioning and rebuilding are facts of life for every national team after every World Cup, this is far different from 2018. Then, Tite stayed on board and continuity was by default made easier even as he had to learn and adapt to changing circumstances. Now, it's a brand-new project; some of the players who faced Croatia in December were present in Morocco, but there'll be little game time for further team chemistry to be built before the matches that are worth 3 points for a spot in 2026 start. With 48 teams and more CONMEBOL teams qualifying, we'll be there (we'd be there even if the people at FIFA didn't make this error of expanding the World Cup). But the sooner the team finds a new identity, the better. It'll be an interesting, and quite long, few years before Brazil kicks off its first match at the 2026 World Cup. We're somewhere we haven't been at since Dunga replaced Scolari in 2014.
UOL had a short article on laterais today that names a few fullbacks in Europe that people are less familiar with and ends with the note that national team analysts have seen quite a few matches in Brazil and Europe but there is no unanimous candidate for either spot. https://www.uol.com.br/esporte/fute...ra-procura-laterais-e-nao-ve-unanimidades.htm To add my own note, even for the pre-Olympic spots, it was easier for me to find left-backs than right-backs. Either way, I think we'll see a lot of names in those spots between senior and U23 options until the end of 2024 and even 2025.
They did it. They sold the guy from america-mg, who played two minutes, a week after the game against morocco Bayer Leverkusen are now set to sign Brazilian talented fullback Arthur from America MG, here we go! 🚨🔴🇧🇷Medical scheduled in the next days, full agreement between clubs on €7m fee — contract until 2028.Born in 2003, Arthur was called up with Seleçao and will join Bayer. pic.twitter.com/0xYWfPfaRO— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) March 31, 2023 CBF is very corrupt
I've been keeping an eye on a wider range of fullbacks, including the ones named in the article above, but it really is remarkable how few options there are on the right. On the left, Caio Henrique did well today. Alex Telles continues to get minutes since coming back from injury. Sometimes he starts, usually he is a sub. Often in a back 3 or back 5 now. Renan Lodi hasn't looked great at Nottingham Forest, but is starting most weeks now. Abner has been poor, but he's still young, I hope he improves considerably at Real Betis. The Serie A options listed in the article are at small clubs but look like decent defensive options. Carlos Augusto (Monza), Rogerio (Sassuolo). I wouldn't mind seeing one of them in June, but who knows. Either way, there are options. Even in Brazil, with Ayrton Lucas doing well for example, there are options. And Guilherme Arana is back to working out. Who knows, he could be back by June, but will certainly be back in time for qualifiers in September. And all of that is before getting into the youth options. But on the right? Emerson remains inconsistent (though for now he's out due to injury). Dodo at Fiorentina is one of the more regular starters among our right-back options, but is poor. Gilberto at Benfica has been more of a bench option than he was last year when he had a long shot at the WC squad. I do think he should be in the mix though. Yan Couto and Vinicius Tobias are still very young. Vanderson is young as well, but starts often and plays off the bench when not starting. The problem is he often plays as a right midfielder, though today for example he did line up as full back in a 4-2-3-1. Included in the options above is Vitinho, who plays for Burnley. Burnley are in the second division in England (EFL Championship) but have been promoted with 6 games to go. He's come off the bench in the last two matches, but did start sometimes prior to that as well. If he's part of the coach's plans for the EPL next year, it will be worth following him. He's only 23 and needs to improve though. Meanwhile, Alex Sandro and Danilo continue to play as centre-backs in a back 3 for Juventus. Even so, if we were forced to play a competitive match next week, I'd be hard-pressed to pick better options on the right than Danilo and Éder Militão! and I'd be tempted to take Alex Sandro too. Let's hope we see some promising call-ups and performances between now, June and the qualifiers.
I think Alex Sandro, Danilo and Militão can do well as full-backs. Brazil had much better players in the past, but if you compare them to the other national teams, they're ok. Dodo, Alex Telles, Wendell, Emerson I think are insufficient, but it wouldn't be absurd to call them because they played in the champions league or europa league. They're at the top of football. Pepe has played full-back at times for Porto. Pepe, Vanderson and Caio Henrique have potential to improve. A call-up would help sell them to bigger clubs. As they done with the boy from America-MG. At least it would be with a more tested player in Europe.
Hope you guys saw the Real Madrid v Chelsea Champions League game today. Militao is a God level central defender and I think for Brazil he will be wasted as a right back.
I've pointed out a few times in this thread that the timing of the June friendlies is not ideal for the potential next coach and now it's being acknowledged as an issue for the next set of friendlies: https://ge.globo.com/futebol/seleca...a-com-incertezas-para-proxima-data-fifa.ghtml From the article: The plan for a match to celebrate the Amazon with a new, all-green uniform is being postponed for a few reasons. CBF President wants to play good opposition in June, but also wants to host more matches in Brazil, but UEFA regulations make that difficult. He attended the most recent UEFA congress and asked them to relax the rules in question. Brazil will have to consider an interim coach for June as Ancelotti could be potentially be busy until June 10 and Ramon Menezes will be at the U20 World Cup. (As I keep pointing out in this thread, the likely call-up date would be May 26, so even if Ancelotti and Menezes don't reach UCL or U20 finals, it's still too early.) If I were in CBF's position I'd be focused on getting the director of seleções they want and set up some of the current procedures as ongoing policies - like the work the current analysts are doing - and set up some of the connections between youth and senior teams, including beginning to establish an overarching approach to the national team so that the interim coach has an objective to work with, that will help prepare the team for September with the new coach. Anyways, with CBF's President in Europe as scheduled for events, and to interview candidates, we should have a few more articles and updates coming this month.
I decided to try and keep track of a wide range of full-backs this weekend. We'll see if I can keep this up for multiple weeks, at least until the next call-up. Initially I was just going to list all Brazilian full-backs in the Brasileirão. But then I decided to add RBs and LBs in England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Portugal. (So with Brazil, that's 7 leagues.) This does not include EFL (English tier two) or Real Madrid Castilla, where Vitinho and Vinicius Tobias play. I'm not going to spam this thread with all of them but here's a summary of this weekend so far: Between starts and subs, 14 Brazilian left-backs played in the Brasileirão today and (incl. yesterday) 20 in all the leagues above. 16 Brazilian right-backs played in the Brasileirão today and only 1 in Portugal. Best-rated left-back so far were Renê (Inter) and Rubens (Atl-MG) at 7.3 Best-rated right-back was Samuel Xavier (Flu) at 7.6, followed by Madson (Atl-PR) and Aderlan (Bragantino) at 7.3 Sofascore ratings are a little skewed as they favor some statistics in particular, so one weekend isn't much to rely on. There were a few cases of RB playing LB or vice-versa (either as subs or part of the match), one CD played as full-back, and at least one team (Bahia) didn't use full-backs. I'll narrow the list down slowly, as some aren't realistic national team options, but I don't want to exclude anyone for now. I'll post another summary after Monday's matches for the whole weekend.
I decided to post a summary today for the full-backs that played today in Brazil and Europe. 18 more left-backs played today (2 notable ones didn't play due to suspension: Alex Sandro and Alex Telles). 8 of those in Brazil (including subs, one of who only played 1 minute), 10 overseas. 13 more right-backs played today, 7 in Brazil and 4 in France, 1 in La Liga and 1 (Danilo as CD) in Italy. The highest-rated left-back was Matheus Quaresma, of modest Arouca in Portugal with a 7.9. (And no goals or assists to seriously skew the stat, just a good performance defensively away from home.) The highest-rated right-back remains Samuel Xavier at 7.6, while João Pedro of Grêmio got a 7.5, in 45 minutes, including one goal, and Danilo, who plays as a central defender, got a 7.5 despite Juventus losing away from home. All in all that's 30 right-backs and 37 left-backs in action so far this weekend (plus 3 notable LBs who did not see action). At least one more right-back is likely to play tomorrow and maybe a couple of full-backs on small teams in Portugal too.
Here we go. That's my ecosystem ranking for CONMEBOL using the same exact model I used for the AFC. Bear in mind my model takes into account - NT Form => 50% weighting - Youth results => 20% weighting - Pedigree = 20% weighting - Club Success => 10% weighting National team form since 2019 has been considered. Youth results since the year of 2013. Subject of my my research were the results at the U20 level and the Summer Olympics. Pedigree refers to the past results. To be precise it starts with 2006 WCQ and the 2007 Copa America. Everything before that was not taken into account. Club success refers to results obtained in the Copa America and the Copa Sudamericana since 2016. All results for each metrics were calculated based on a formular. It's not feelings related but stats related. Nation_____________________Score 1. Argentina_______________9.15 NT Form___________________10 Youth______________________6.5 Pedigree___________________10 Club success_______________8.5 2. Brazil__________________9.15 NT Form___________________9.5 Youth______________________7.5 Pedigree___________________9.5 Club success_______________10 3. Uruguay________________6.90 NT Form___________________6.5 Youth______________________10 Pedigree___________________6.5 Club success_______________3.5 4. Colombia_______________6.25 NT Form___________________6.5 Youth______________________7.0 Pedigree___________________5.5 Club success_______________5.0 5. Ecuador________________5.15 NT Form___________________5.5 Youth______________________5.5 Pedigree___________________3.5 Club success_______________6.0 6. Peru___________________5.00 NT Form___________________7.0 Youth______________________2.0 Pedigree___________________5.0 Club success_______________1.0 7. Chile___________________4.80 NT Form___________________5.5 Youth______________________3.5 Pedigree___________________5.5 Club success_______________2.5 8. Paraguay_______________4.75 NT Form___________________5.0 Youth______________________4.0 Pedigree___________________4.5 Club success_______________5.5 9. Venezuela______________3.55 NT Form___________________4.0 Youth______________________4.5 Pedigree___________________2.5 Club success_______________1.5 10. Bolivia________________2.05 NT Form___________________2.5 Youth______________________1.5 Pedigree___________________1.0 Club success_______________3.0 I think it's safe to say that Argentina and Brazil form a top 2 while Uruguay and Colombia round off what is a strong top 4. There are in Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Paraguay four nations that can pretend to be the fifth best nation in CONMEBOL. The margins are very small as highlighted in my ranking. The upcoming 2026 cycle will give us a better indication on which nation is fifth. For more information check out the following link: https://kassiesa.net/uefa/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=6049 For taking a part in a poll check out the following link: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/conmebol-nations-ecosystem-ranking.2125583/#post-41341029
After deciding not to hire in February, like they originally planned, after reportedly being willing to wait for Ancelotti, after his reps reportedly went to Brazil and after the President of CBF reportedly was to use his trip to Europe to follow-up with Ancelotti and interview candidates, globo is reporting that CBF will wait until May 25, but no later: https://ge.globo.com/futebol/seleca...de-maio-depois-deve-partir-para-plano-b.ghtml I hope that's not accurate. If it is, it's just poor planning. All these dates are well-known. La Liga ends June 4. If you make it to the CL final, that's June 10 for the last match of the season. CBF should have hired a director for national teams and let them coordinate the March and June friendlies and set criteria and allowed us to wait until the end of the season to go after our targets.
Today's update is a bit more encouraging than the article above. Basically indicates there has been contact with Ancelotti and the status is simply that he and Real Madrid will talk after the semi-final (second match is Wednesday May 17). After that, if he indicates to CBF he is willing to take the Brazil job, Brazil will plan the June friendlies with an interim coach. Otherwise they will move forward with someone else at that point. https://ge.globo.com/futebol/seleca...f-segue-dialogos-com-real-e-ancelotti-1.ghtml
This just makes it sound we are a backup plan for Ancelotti. If we were 1st priority, you'd think he could tell Florentino he wants out for sure at the end of the season regardless of results.
Maybe. Another thing it could be is just the lack of experience on CBF's side in dealing with this scenario. If it were a Brazilian candidate, especially in Brazil, once CBF came calling the coach would answer right away. They're probably not used to this idea that someone wants to wait until the end of the season. They should have known from the beginning that the timing would always depend on the European season overall, not on a possible CL elimination. If it's just cause we're plan B for Ancelotti, I'm fine with it. I think it's a worthwhile experiment. Diniz is for the future and Abel or someone else could come in in an emergency next year or 2025 if things fall apart.
For those of you who were around 1986-1990, do you think that Brazil is in a similar bind as during that period? That is, back then Brazil had not won much since 1970 and I've read about all the discussions as to how the Brazil playing style should be more "EUROPEAN". All that lead to the hiring of Lazaroni supposedly because his style was, in fact, more European and we know that it lead to, shall we say, disaster in 1990?
We are definitely a backup plan for Ancelotti. He absolutely loves Real Madrid and living in Madrid. He isn't leaving until he gets fired. Even then he talked often about retirement after this stint.
I think the main question is more of a "contemporary" style rather than a "European" style. The way Real Madrid plays under Ancelotti, there is no current style more aesthetic other than maybe Pep's style. If Brazil plays like Real Madrid do currently, no one will complain about style.
I have to agree here. This is one of the reasons Ancelotti was such a good candidate. There's going to be pushback if Brazil hires a foreign coach. Someone who is perceived this way can help mitigate that pushback (add his experience and titles, and all that make one big reason why we haven't heard much pushback at all while CBF waits). I think Portuguese coaches are the only group who might also be able to mitigate that pressure and pushback against foreign coaches, but there is also some potential for drama there if bad results happen and some of those in Brazil who often criticize the influx of Portuguese coaches start getting louder.
https://ge.globo.com/futebol/seleca...o-por-ancelotti-temos-que-ser-pacientes.ghtml Another chapter in CBF realizing that if they want Ancelotti they have to wait until his season is over. Sure, if they wanted a Brazilian coach, they could probably get anyone at any time because most would instantly quit their jobs for that chance. It just reveals how unaware and isolated people in these positions can be, to see them slowly realizing they have to wait for what they want. Too bad they didn't realize it early on and switch focus to hiring the other position they want (coordinator/director) or focus on a coherent plan for the upcoming friendlies. At any rate, this means we shouldn't expect any actual news on Ancelotti until after the season. Anything after the CL semis will probably just be speculation.
They're just fooling the press with this story about Ancelotti, who might even be the next coach, but nobody is thinking about that right now at the CBF For the CBF, it's good to have an obscure coach in these friendlies. They are making money by calling very young players. It's a Brazilian team in the hands of agents. The other day they called up a full-back from América-MG, the following week he was sold. The other day I watched a game of Andrey Santos from Vasco da Gama, maybe he doesn't have conditions to be Vasco's starter. He can become a good player, but at 19 you can't tell. How many kennedy, lucas piazon and adryan haven't appeared and disappeared? And he was a starter for the Brazilian national team.