1970 World Cup winner Roberto Rivellino has blasted Brazil’s attacking players and singled our Zenit St Petersburg forward Hulk for criticism.
Website soccerly published an article which included comments from Rivellino, who had been speaking Sportv, where the former Brazil international only had praise for Barcelona star Neymar.
The 68-year-old said: “The current moment of Brazilian football, in terms of quality, is awful. Neymar is the only player that can make a difference.”
Rivellino was focusing on the attacking options in Luiz Felipe Scolari’s team and pinpointed Hulk as an example.
“I have nothing against Hulk, but for the love of God, players like him are called up for tactical reasons,” said the Corinthians legend.
“While in the past the best players were called up, Hulk is called up so that the midfielder can play his game, and the midfielder plays to allow the striker to play. That makes no sense.
“Unfortunately the current generation isn’t good, if you analyze our national team, we have much more defensive quality than attacking.”
His point about Brazil having better defenders than attackers is certainly true. As demonstrated by strikers Alexandre Pato and Leandro Damião, who have hugely declined over the last year, still being in with a shot of making Scolari’s World Cup squad.
Rivellino did go on to say he would rather Fluminense’s Walter be called up over some of the current forwards chosen in the most recent Brazil squads.
He concluded: “We have nobody nowadays. It’s absurd, Brazil always had two or three good attacking players but nowadays we don’t have any striker.
“You can search around and you won’t find. The best striker is an overweight one called Walter, I would rather have an overweight one like him than many thinner ones.”
