Brazilian football needs constant psychological assistance – 02/13/2024 – Tostão

Brazil lost to Argentina 1-0 and is out of the Paris Olympics. Argentina and Paraguay qualified. The Brazilian team played very poorly in every match. He left huge spaces between the sectors, exchanged very few passes and did not press to recover the ball, common deficiencies in Brazilian teams.

This defeat is another chapter in the sequence of several failures after the 2002 World Cup. Brazil has failed to reach the final in the last five World Cups, lost the last three matches to Argentina and is doing very poorly in the Qualifiers after defeats to Uruguay, Colombia and Argentina.

In addition to individual and collective difficulties, Brazil is experiencing administrative problems, with the CBF president’s mistakes in choosing the team’s coach.

We see a trend in South America and around the world towards a reduction in the technical difference between teams. One of the reasons is that it has improved the training of good players on all continents. Between clubs it is different, because of the huge investments made by the main Brazilian clubs in relation to their American rivals and European ones in other countries, including Brazil.

I wrote, a million times and some don’t understand, that Brazil continues to produce a huge number of excellent players, who are spread across the country and the world, but there is a lack of special players in several positions; on the wings, in midfield and as a center forward. Vinicius Junior is the only Brazilian player on the list of the best in the world. He is getting better every day, but he is more brilliant at Real Madrid than in the national team because he has more stars alongside him and because he is better guided.

The experienced Ancelotti never stops reinventing himself. When Benzema left, the coach formed a pair of attackers with Vini and Rodrygo in the middle, out of their positions, in addition to the exceptional midfielder Bellingham who arrived from behind. Rodrygo and Vini did not participate in the marking. It worked and it got even better with the changes made in the rout of Girona last weekend.

Real didn’t have a single striker on the drawing board. Vini and Rodrygo returned to the side to score and Bellingham was free in front of the midfield, without being a center forward. When Real recovered the ball, in a fraction of a second the trio were close to the area making beautiful plays and goals.

In this post-2002 period, with many defeats for the national team, one of the problems of Brazilian football could be a loss of confidence, a negative feeling that spread through the collective unconscious of the athletes, as they could not withstand the pressure, the responsibility of maintaining the enormous prestige of our football acquired over time, even more so at a time when we are no longer the best. We are among the best.

Regardless of my analysis, it is necessary for Brazilian football, in all categories, men’s and women’s, to have constant psychological assistance.

Brazilian football, the CBF, clubs, governments, politicians need to exchange isolated actions, even when they are positive, for transformative, comprehensive, structural, definitive behaviors, for real.

For decades I have heard that state championships are long, that it is essential to have a strong league to lead the Brasileirão, as in other countries, that Brazil has very serious social problems and almost half of the population does not have basic sanitation.

Still, nothing happens, just idle chatter. Good thing there is Carnival.

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