It's been just over a year since Brazil crashed out of the World Cup in humiliating fashion but despite the Selecao having failed in another tournament since then, Fernando Duarte can't get July 2014 out of his mind. Nor can he get beyond the long-lasting repercussions of Luiz Felipe Scolari's tenure.
Dear Big Phil,
How the heck are you?
It has been ages since I last wrote to you. In fact it was exactly a year ago, when after being awake for almost 24 hours and after a journey that included two flights and a semi-awake drive to Teresopolis, I decided to draft some lines to express my feelings not only as a writer who had been following Brazilian football for over 10 years.
It was impossible not to get a bit personal. On the Mineirao pitch, the Selecao suffered a defeat from where the only positive angle to be taken was that the Germans could have scored 14. I don't think I need to explain again how awful it was for anybody who has a little sympathy for Brazilian football to witness that semifinal. Neither do I need to go remind anybody about what took place over 90-odd minutes on July 8, 2014. It's not that people have stopped talking about the worst defeat ever suffered by Brazil since.
Just like last year, singling you out remains unfair. It was not your fault that some crucial players in Brazil's World Cup squad arrived at the World Cup far from firing on all cylinders; ironically enough, the list includes the same Paulinho you just signed for your new club, Guanghzou Evergrande. Neither could you expect that Thiago Silva, a name nobody would ever dispute as a rightful captain for the Selecao, would implode emotionally in such a spectacular fashion. I'm not talking about the waterworks in the Chile game, enough to flood the Atacama desert; I'm referring to his foolish yellow card against Colombia.
Also, how could you have imagined Neymar would be taken down? Who could also blame you for banking on his inspired plays, which were compensating the shortcomings around him. You're also not blame for a generation that wasn't vintage.
But I guess you really didn't help your case immensely, either.
First, your failure to resign while still at the Mineirao press room. Instead, you farcically used the third place playoff as a reason to dodge the subject, something you also did after that useless game ended with Brazil being humiliated by the Dutch and the Selecao finishing the World Cup with the worst defensive record of any tournament. You actually had to be pushed by the Brazilian Football Confederation.
Secondly, you kept mentioning a "power failure" as the only reason why Brazil performed so bad. It did work while everybody was still in shock. Then, some people started watching the game again. They all saw your team pretty much play like the Space Jam lot without Michael Jordan against an opponent that did their homework. Had you done yours, we could have seen Brazil play more like Algeria -- I know, this sounds weird -- and actually given the Germans a game. You still insist to these day that some mysterious switch off took place and that's actually quite disrespectful to the victorious opponents and eventual champions.
Well, never mind. Two weeks after the Sete a Umyou were unveiled as manager of Gremio, the side where you actually became famous in the 1990s after winning six titles in three years, including the 1995 Libertadores Cup and the 1996 Campeonato Brasileiro. Talk about trying to roll back the years, huh? Well, last May you resigned, without a trophy and after managing to damage your credibility further, and you surprised a lot of people again when Evergrande, the Chinese Super League's most powerful team, came knocking.
Of course, you've done that before when you accepted the job at Palmeiras in 2012, the same club where you pretty much became a Selecao contender by lifting another Libertadores in 1999. This time, however, you jumped ship before the club was relegated to the Campeonato Brasileiro.
It's clear that someone out there still reckons you can do a good job. It's probably a good gig in financial terms, not that you are in dire straits. That brief job you took in Uzbekistan after being fired by Chelsea paid well: you received €13 million for 18 months of work while still receiving a massive payment from Chelsea as compensation after less than eight months at Stamford Bridge. It meant that in 2009 you were the highest paid manager in the world, if those rankings are to be believed, and all without winning a notable trophy.
In all fairness, you weren't a bad choice to take over Brazil after Mano Menezes was dismissed in November 2012. With a little more than 18 months until the World Cup, there weren't many names around that could steady the nation's nerves. Besides, you had been the last man to take Brazil to a World Cup title.
Of course it's easy to moan now and say CBF suits should have given Pep Guardiola the gig -- a rumour reinforced by Dani Alves this week -- but even him could have struggled to tidy the house up. Despite some bizarre moments in the World Cup, Brazil still made the semifinals of a tournament in which Spain and Italy were sent home in shame.
In November 2012 it looked unlikely that Brazil could go that far. Brazil's drubbing of Spain in the 2013 Confederations Cup was beautiful and made people like the Selecao again. You knew that anything less than winning "the Hexa" would have tarnished your legacy. Still, it could have been less painful for everybody. Including you.
Phil, you have to be commended for not simply throwing in the towel. It took genuine guts to actually face mocking crowds in Brazil week in and week out for almost a year. Still, you may have brought some of it upon yourself and in this sense, China looks like a nice place to escape things a bit. The problem is: will people ever forget that? If the way the 1950 Selecao, which narrowly missed the title to Uruguay, is anything to go by, I think you are in for a long hangover.
Brazilian football is too, judging by what's happened since you left. You were replaced by another "gaucho" (a man born in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul). Dunga was another connection to the past, despite the fact that his first shot at the job didn't go that well. There were victories in friendlies, especially one over Argentina and Messi, but at the Copa America Brazil were lucky to only fall on penalties against Paraguay.
The way the team had been playing, it's quite likely the Selecao would have another historical drubbing at the hands of Messi & Co. had they reached that semifinal. Clearly, the Mineirazo will take a long time to at least settle in. And the absence of announcements of any credible plans to reorganize Brazilian football by CBF is giving everybody the creeps.
Still, I wish you well. In person, we had our spats but it was also a good ride. Thank you for the 2002 memories, man, but damn you for the ones you gave me in 2014.
Fernando Duarte is a U.K.-based Brazilian football expert who has reported on the Selecao for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter@Fernando_Duarte.
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