Brazilian National team - Most popular for 2007
Viewing all posts which authors have tagged ‘Brazilian National team’.
You can also subscribe to this tag's feed.
According to an article on the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, the president of the Brazilian
Footbal Confederation (CBF) admitted some of the players in the National squad were involved in
heavy drinking during the 2006 World Cup, played in Germany. Mr. Ricardo Teixeira explained to the
newspaper some of the reasons why he thought the team played so poorly during the competition.
On the eve of two friendly matches against USA and Mexico Dunga made two replacements. Edu Dracena
from Fenerbahce and Gladstone from Sporting replaced injured Alex (Chelsea) and Alex Silva (Sao
Paulo).
After a couple of losses to Mexico, Brazil finally restablished the normal state of affairs with a
3-1 win in a friendly match between the two teams in Boston on Wednesday. The last loss to the
Mexicans had happened in June, when Brazil opened its campaign at the Copa America with a 2-0
defeat. The team would come back to win the title. Mexico had also won the previous matchup between
the two countries, in 2005, also by a 2-0 score.
Brazilian National coach Dunga announced the name of the 22 players for the friendly against
Algeria, on August 22, in Montpellier, France. Kaka and Ronaldinho, who were not in last month's
Copa America team, were included in the list. The coach had not been happy by both players' request
to be left out of the team that played in the competition, ultimately won by Brazil.
Sorry about the disappearance over the last couple of months. Lots of changes in my offline life,
and not as much time as I'd have liked to keep the blog updated. I might have to change the style
of the blog over the next while, with shorter entries and not that much info in regards to upcoming
games, but at least I'll try to show up more regularly.
Brazil beat Argelia 2-0 on Wednesday, on a friendly match played at Montpellier, France. The
Brazilian National Team did not play well, but was competent enough to score two goals in the
second half, when star players Ronaldinho Gaucho and Kaka joined the team from the bench.
Ronaldinho took a free kick and Maicon headed the ball for the first goal.
Brazil and Uruguay play tonight for the Copa America semifinal, in Maracaibo, Venezuela. The
Brazilians are favourites, but not by a large margin - due mostly to the poor efforts the team has
shown recently than any brilliance of the opponents in the last few matches.
True, both teams are coming from good victories in the quarterfinals (6-1 for Brazil against Chile
and 4-1 for Uruguay over the hosts Venezuela).
Uruguay captain Diego Lugano is used to being in the middle of a celebration by Brazilians on a
football pitch. After all, he became famous in Brazil after being part of a good Sao Paulo team
that won important titles like the 2005 Libertadores and Intercontinental Cups. On Tuesday, he was
once again in the middle of a Brazilian football celebration.
The Brazilian Under-20 team is finally out of the Fifa U-20 World Cup which is being played in
Canada. The Brazilians, who barely qualified out of the first round with one win and two losses,
lost to Spain 4-2 in extra time on Wednesday, in a second round game played in Burnaby, British
Columbia.
It looked like the Brazilians would advance late in the first half, after Leandro and Alexandre
Pato scored one minute apart, in the 39th and 40th minutes.
Dunga disliked the fact that Sao Paulo's playmaker Souza criticized in the press the practice of
Dunga's preferring players who play in Europe to those who play at home. Souza himself was one of
the candidates for the national team, but after those words Dunga in the worst soviet traditions
virtually closed the door to country's main team for the talented player.
If the U-20 team just managed to scrape by to the second round in their World Cup, the main squad
had an easier time moving to the semifinals. After a controversial midweek when several players
were accused of celebrating the qualification to the second round through excessive partying, Chile
faced Brazil missing a few key players. Unluckily for the Chileans, the Brazilian team also chose
to play its best game of the tournament so far.
It didn't take long to see that this was a different Brazilian team than the one that had played a
mostly lacklustre competition. Brazil started the final against the powerful Argentines taking some
chances in attack, and patiently controlling the ball in midfield. Before the game was five minutes
old, Julio Baptista received the ball inside the penalty box on the left wing, quickly cutting it
towards the centre of the pitch past an opponent, and then perfectly placing it to the left of
goalkeeper Abbondazieri.
For the duration of this year's Copa America, Brazil has been criticized at home and abroad for not
playing up to par with what has generally been perceived as the traditional Brazilian way of
playing football. The 'jogo bonito', or beautiful game, style of play made Brazilians famous, with
a controlled pace given to the game so as to entertain fans, dominate the opposing team and
ultimately - if it came to it - win titles.
