The team is without Ancelotti and Brazil is adrift – 12/29/2023 – Sport

The wait for Carlo Ancelotti, 64, came to an end, but not as the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) expected. This Friday (29), Real Madrid announced the renewal of the contract with the Italian until 2026 and frustrated the entity’s plans for the coach to take over the Brazilian team in 2024.

The end of the dream of counting on the multi-time champion is the final straw in the CBF’s disastrous season, which lost more than a year in the process of reformulating the team since Tite’s departure at the end of Brazil’s participation in the last World Cup, in 2022. , in Qatar.

Throughout 2023, the highest authority in Brazilian football invested in two interims. First, it was Ramon Menezes. Afterwards, Fernando Diniz signed a one-year contract in June, always being treated as interim, since the confederation took Ancelotti’s arrival after this period for granted.

When contacted by the report, the CBF said it would not comment.

The agreement with the Italian, who never publicly confirmed any agreement, would have been made by Ednaldo Rodrigues, dismissed by the Rio de Janeiro Court, who appointed Jose Perdiz, president of the STJD (Superior Court of Sports Justice), as intervenor.

Amid the political turbulence that led to Ednaldo losing his position, the Brazilian team also experienced a technical crisis on the field. The unprecedented sequence of defeats in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers led Fernando Diniz to close the 2023 season with the third worst start of a coach at the helm of the Canarian team.

Announced in July without leaving Fluminense, the coach was unable to avoid three consecutive defeats (to Uruguay, Colombia and Argentina), in addition to Brazil’s first setback as host in the history of the qualifying tournament, against the Argentines, at Maracanã.

Of the six matches played this year in the Qualifiers, Brazil won only two (Bolivia and Peru) and drew another, against Venezuela. The results left Diniz with just 39%, and the team in sixth place, in the last position that guarantees a place in the World Cup.

Survey of Sheet based on the selection history maintained by RSSSF Brasil (national arm of the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation) shows that the coach had the third worst start of anyone who has ever managed the team. Only Paulo Roberto Falcão and Chico Netto performed in the first six official matches.

The entity defines matches between national teams (including friendlies) as official and duels with national or foreign teams and combinations as unofficial.

With five draws and one defeat, Falcão recorded a 28% success rate at the start of a quick spell between 1990 and 1991, a period in which he managed the national team in just 19 games. He faced difficulties in achieving convincing victories, and uneven performance in the 1991 Copa América cut short his work.

Chico Netto also had a brief spell as coach of the national team in 1923, shortly after becoming part of the team’s coaching staff. At the time, he scored 33% in the first six games, with two wins and four losses on his record.

Osvaldo Brandão (1955-1956), Evaristo de Macedo (1985) and Emerson Leão (2001) appear in sequence among the worst starts to work in the selection, all with 50% success in the first six official games, according to the criteria of the RSSSF Brazil.

For Diniz, statistics are not enough to reflect the work. In his journey, he admits the team’s fluctuations, but sees this as part of the process of reformulating the squad, necessary after the failures in the last two World Cups.

“In life, you can’t take and put a statistic. Think it’s just statistics. If it’s just statistics, everything is very bad, but we need to analyze it as a process of change”, said the coach after the defeat to Argentina , 1-0, at Maracanã.

He also regrets the loss of Neymar, who was injured against Uruguay and ended up out of the clashes against Colombia and Argentina. Despite questions regarding the player’s performance in his last seasons, Diniz considers him a fundamental piece for the team.

At the age of 31, the number 10 suffered a serious injury to his left knee, tearing the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus. Thus, he will be away for up to 12 months and is unlikely to play in the next Copa América, in 2024, in the United States.

It is also not yet known who will be on the sidelines in charge of Brazil during the competition. Diniz’s contract provides for a contract until July 5th. Thus, he would only have two more matches ahead of the team, two friendlies in March, against England and Spain.

After that, the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) plan was to count on Ancelotti. Now, it is not even known who will make decisions about the team’s future.

On the one hand, the Brazilian Court ordered the intervener to call elections in January. On the other, FIFA and Conmebol state that they do not recognize the intervention and prevent such an election from being held before a delegation of the entities comes to Brazil to inspect the situation.

Whatever the outcome, the political turmoil in the entity and the difficulty of finding a consensus coach could benefit Fernando Diniz, after all there is a rush to define Brazil’s new commander soon and avoid having a year considered lost again like 2023.