The next phase of Brazil’s World Cup build up kicks off this week with the game against Argentina in Cordoba.
The importance of the occasion lies not so much in the opposition – Argentine domestic football is currently much financially weaker than Brazilian. Mano Menezes has much more quality available to him for this fixture than his Argentine counterpart Alejandro Sabella. Only one home based player was on duty in the recent friendlies that Argentina played against Venezuela and Nigeria
in India and Bangladesh respectively – and that was third choice goalkeeper Esteban Andrada, promoted from the World Youth Cup team.
Brazil, meanwhile, took ten domestically based players to London for last Monday’s game against Ghana. There is, then, a clear imbalance in this latest chapter of the historical rivalry between the two South American giants.
But the game is significant because of the venue. Brazil are playing at home. For the full strength team, their grand world tour continues, with matches coming up later this year against Mexico, Costa Rica and Gabon. But soon they will also be in action on Brazilian soil – an important development on the road to 2014.
As part of the constant friction between national teams and the top European clubs, a gentlemen’s agreement exists which limits the amount of trips the South American players take back across the Atlantic to represent their country. But it does not apply to World Cup qualifiers. And so on those dates where all the other teams in the continent will have their European based stars available trying to book their place in the next World Cup, the tournament hosts will also be able to parade their full strength side in front of the home public. It is vital that Brazil take advantage of this opportunity, as Mano Menezes is well aware.
“Playing in Brazil is different from playing abroad,” he said recently. “The crowd are much more impatient. We need to get used to it, so we’ll be playing more frequently in Brazil.”
A decade ago playing at home nearly brought an early end to what turned out to be the victorious 2002 World Cup campaign. It was the first time Brazil had participated in South America’s marathon qualification format, with all ten of the continent’s nations playing each other home and away. Underestimating the difficulties of the campaign almost cost Brazil a place in Japan and South Korea – and cost coaches Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Emerson Leao their jobs along the way.
All countries were obliged to name one host city where they would stage their home games. This was largely a bid to prevent Brazilfrom attempting to pressurize the likes of Bolivia and Ecuador into hosting their matches with the Selecao at sea level, rather than at the extreme altitude of their mountain strongholds. The thinking was that if one team has to go up to La Paz and Quito, then everyone has to do the same.
On account of its size, Brazil was able to use two host cities for its home matches. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo were nominated.
This made sense in terms of ease of getting the players back from Europe. But very quickly a problem emerged. These are the traditional centres of the Brazilian game, where the fans have grown up on the best, and can be very quick to let the players know that they are falling below the expected standards.
Right from the second home game, the debut in Rio against Uruguay, the players were unhappy. After the match Luxemburgo revealed that, fed up with being jeered at by the Maracana crowd, the players were begging for an alternative venue. The coach told them that those were the rules and they would have to accept it.
A few months later in Leao’s first match in charge Rivaldo flirted briefly with the idea of retiring from international football after the Morumbi crowd in Sao Paulo had booed him for much of the match against Colombia.
Brazil were scrambling for every point they could get, and an energy crisis came to their rescue. The argument that the south east of the country was suffering from a shortage of electricity was the pretext for Brazil to wriggle out of the necessity to restrict themselves to Rio and Sao Paulo. For the last few matches of the campaign under Luiz Felipe Scolari, home games were taken to smaller, provincial cities where the fans were less demanding. Winning those games got Brazil over the finish line to a place in Japan and South Korea – and the rest is history.
There will be no hiding place in 2014. Brazil have still never lost at home in a World Cup qualifier – but on the previous occasion they staged the tournament in 1950 they were beaten by Uruguay in what was effectively the tournament final. Needing only a draw to win their first world title they took the lead before falling 2-1 to a late Uruguayan rally.
Back then there were a mere 50 million Brazilians piling on the pressure. By 2014 there will be 200 million. Throw in the hysterical coverage of a 24/7 media culture, and it becomes apparent that in the next World Cup Brazil will have to endure a force of pressure greater than any team in the past. This Wednesday they receive their first lesson in coping with it.
ends
