Accustomed to winning beautifully now losing ugly, Brazil need to take action or risk being left behind

As the post-mortem begins on another failed tournament for Brazil, Ali Khaled looks at what has gone wrong for the iconic football nation.

Brazil coach Dunga has called for an overhaul to Brazilian football both on the pitch and off. Andres Stapff / Reuters

Brazilian football fans, and fans of Brazil in general, are not happy.

When the final of the Copa America takes place on Saturday night, Dunga’s men will be nowhere to be seen. In fact, having won three of the last four tournaments of South America’s top international competition (1999, 2004, 2007), Brazil failed to even reach the semi-final of the last two tournaments.

The 4-3 loss on penalties to Paraguay last Sunday may not have been as harrowing or as comical as the 7-1 evisceration by Germany at the World Cup last summer, but it was just as telling. Social media showed a fan base on the point of mutiny.

How did it get to this?

In 1970, Brazil’s greatest team won the World Cup playing the most spectacular brand of football the world had ever seen. Pele, Jairzinho, Tostao and Rivelino — seen by a mass, worldwide television audience for the first time, in Technicolor — the legend of the all-singing, all-dancing gold and blue was born.

Twelve years later, in Spain, Brazil again bewitched the world, but left merely with the tag of the greatest team never to win the World Cup. The “jogo bonito”, or the beautiful game, endured though.

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By the time of the 1994 World Cup in the USA things had changed. Pragmatism replaced abandon. Brazil won the tournament, but they won ugly.

The team of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho that claimed the 2002 World Cup promised a new golden era for Brazil. Instead it now increasingly looks like a last hurrah.

The last year has seen Brazil hit new lows. Fans can just about tolerate winning ugly; but no one said anything about losing ugly.

Ugly. That’s exactly what Brazil’s performance against an excellent Paraguay was.

Watching Dunga’s men barely able to string a coherent passing move together was confirmation that last year’s humiliation to Germany at the World Cup was no aberration.

Only Chelsea’s Willian and Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho came out of it with any kind of credit, and even then only in comparison to the rotten performances of those around them.

Thiago Silva gave away the penalty that led to Paraguay’s equaliser and was later, somewhat cruelly, singled out by his coach for criticism. New Liverpool signing Roberto Firmino was barely involved, and Robinho faded badly after his early goal.

Those who stayed up till the early hours of the morning to watch the match would have been put off their suhour, so unappetising was the performance.

Without Neymar, their captain who was suspended after his sending off against Colombia, Brazil now struggle against South America’s best, never mind the world’s.

No one, however, not least anyone who has followed Brazil over the last 10 years or so, should have been surprised by what they saw. It’s damning that Brazilian exits are more and more met with a knowing shrug than any sense of shock.

Brazil as the torch bearers of the beautiful game is as close as you can get to a brand in international football. Nike, thanks to record US$160 million (Dh587.7m at today’s rate) deal with the Brazilian FA in 1997 and still has three years to run, will continue to aggressively push the myth. But it’s a product that looks past its sell-by date.

Dunga, who the Brazilian FA has backed following the defeat, has conceded as much.

“We have to rethink Brazilian football, not only on the field,” he said after Brazil’s exit to Paraguay. “We have to recognise that other nations have improved, and we must be humble and understand that it’s time to get to work. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

The long list of reasons for Brazil’s failure will be trotted out again: A shambolic domestic setup, fewer talented players coming through, corruption, injuries, and, of course, Neymar’s absence.

Fans of the Brazil national team will have little time for nuance and introspection. For them, the magic of those yellow shirts is fading fast.

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