Post by QPR Report on Jan 11, 2009 9:23:01 GMT
Interesting.
Sunday Times/Ian Hawkey
Coaches left behind as the brilliant boys from Brazil light up European stage
FIGURES just out from the Brazilian Ministry of Sport: in 2008, 1,178 footballers left the country to work elsewhere, nearly all of them to take up contracts in Europe. More will follow in the first month of 2009 and probably another thousand between June and the end of August. Recession may slow this annual transatlantic procession. It will not halt it.
Now some figures from the smaller, cottage industry that exports Brazilian football coaches. In 2009 the number of those employed in the upper rungs of European club football has already doubled. There are two of them since CSKA Moscow last week took on Zico as their head coach. They follow Chelsea, who have had a Brazilian, Luiz Felipe Scolari, in charge for the past six months.
The ratio here looks startling from any distance. Nearly 1,200 Brazilian players; a mere two senior coaches. The game’s greatest talent exporter can hardly send enough young footballers to satisfy the appetite of Europe’s clubs but the chairmen and presidents who invest most readily in those athletes hardly look twice at the men who might have helped shape their talents.
This is nothing new but it remains a source of some irritation to coaches from Brazil, one of whom, Wanderley Luxemburgo, explained to this reporter candidly: “In Europe, they think Brazil is the Third World and we struggle to organise things.” He also suspected an old stereotype lingered in the European mind, that Brazilian football made all its magic because the players did their own thing, freely, and over there coaching was either a second thought or an irrelevance.
Related Links
Scolari needs win over Manchester United
Scolari faces test of his credentials
Scolari speaks language of love at Chelsea
From time to time in England, Scolari seems to imagine himself fighting a similar prejudice. The Chelsea job, he keeps being reminded, is his first in the grand theatre of club football in Europe, his first in club football at all for more than seven years. More than once he has been asked to confront the idea that, apart from winning a World Cup with the Brazil national team, his record in heavyweight duels leaves something to be desired.
Scolari, irritably, then feels obliged to list his achievements as a club head coach in Brazil. “I have won many things,” he reminded reporters before Chelsea’s trip to Old Trafford today. “I have won two Copa Libertadores, three Cups in Brazil, the Brazilian league.” He could have gone on further, pointing out he has won the premier club title of his native continent the same number of times Sir Alex Ferguson has won Europe’s equivalent.
He could have put into context the value of guiding Palmeiras to their only Libertadores title. If his spoken English was more fluent, he could have set about extinguishing any lingering impression that behind his peak triumph of the 2002 World Cup was an indistinct, uncharted past of obscure regional trinkets and some amusing tales of how he would tell Brazilian ball-boys not to let opponents take throw-ins too quickly if his Gremio side were winning.
In Brazil, those stories are ancient. But the mystery over why so few Brazilian coaches are courted with the same enthusiasm as Brazilian players persists well into the 21st century. Carlos Alberto Parreira, the last Brazil coach before Scolari, told me he thought Brazil did have some catching up to do, at least on countries such as France and even Spain, in streamlining its systems for training coaches. Parreira has been a globetrotter for much of his career, enjoying the cachet Brazilian coaching carries in Asia, Africa and America. Yet his one appointment at a big European club, Valencia, immediately after his 1994 World Cup win with Brazil, was brief and unsuccessful.
Luxemburgo coached Real Madrid for just over a year when that club had Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul and David Beckham on the staff. He was not alone in failing to turn those individuals into a championship or even a cup-winning side. He was unusual in being a Brazilian asked to do so.
The Folha de São Paulo newspaper last week had fun comparing the only Brazilians who have been given top club coaching jobs in Europe this side of the millennium: Scolari and Luxemburgo. Head to heads between Luxemburgo, 56, and Scolari, 60, once animated Brazilian domestic football — a sort of Ferguson versus Wenger with a memorable touchline incident worthy of the WWF ring — and they are now running a virtual version. The newspaper analysed Luxemburgo’s first six months in charge of Madrid in 2004-05 next to Scolari’s at Chelsea in 2008-09. In all competitions, Luxemburgo had a success rate of 72%; Scolari 66.6%. In their respective leagues, Luxemburgo’s Madrid had taken 51 points from 22 matches; Scolari will have taken Chelsea to 48 points from 22 Premiership fixtures only if they defeat Manchester United this afternoon and Stoke City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Six months into the job, half a season played, was a fair time to make judgments, acknowledged Scolari. “When I arrived I didn’t know many players,” he said. “When you arrive in a new club you have three, four, five months to look at what’s happening, but after that you’re clear in your mind what you are doing.
“I now know them all well. It is my group. It is my team. I am with them and they are with me until the last game of the season. Now is the time for me to see if I need to make decisions about the future. If I have to change something, I’ll change it. I was coach of Gremio for three and a half years. The first six months I tried to follow one idea, then it was time to change. It was the same at Palmeiras, the same with Portugal.”
Only it was not quite the same with Portugal. The difference between managing national teams and club squads has a lot to do with the management of fatigue, of concentrating the energies of a footballer over a period of one month of a tournament, rather than over the course of nine or 10.
In Brazil, there is a desire to see Scolari succeed at Chelsea. Tostao, a player in the feted 1970 world champion side and now a columnist, is intrigued. “I’ve seen the English being charmed by his style, by the warm way he deals with players and the public. If Chelsea win the Champions League for the first time, he will become a major figure in England and have an even bigger global reputation. But if things go badly, will he then show his other side, dictatorial, turning aggressive at reporters and opponents? We know that side already. How would the English react to it?”
MANAGERS WHO MADE THE MOVE EAST
OTTO GLORIA
Benfica, Sporting, Atletico Madrid and Marseilles Recruited by Benfica in the mid1950s and in two spells won four league titles and four cups. In a season with Sporting, he won another title. Less successful at Atletico Madrid and Marseilles, Gloria also took Portugal to third place at the 1966 World Cup
CARLOS ALBERTO PARREIRA
Valencia Fresh from guiding Brazil to triumph at the 1994 World Cup, Parreira was offered the Valencia job. He did not last the season and was sacked after a disappointing result in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey. Quit last year as head coach of 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa
WANDERLEY LUXEMBURGO
Real Madrid Hired in the middle of the Galaticos era, Luxemburgo lasted longer than most at the Bernabeu but had no trophies to show for his two-year spell between 2003 and 2005. Scolari’s fiercest rival for many years in domestic football, he is now coaching again in Brazil
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article5488936.ece
Sunday Times/Ian Hawkey
Coaches left behind as the brilliant boys from Brazil light up European stage
FIGURES just out from the Brazilian Ministry of Sport: in 2008, 1,178 footballers left the country to work elsewhere, nearly all of them to take up contracts in Europe. More will follow in the first month of 2009 and probably another thousand between June and the end of August. Recession may slow this annual transatlantic procession. It will not halt it.
Now some figures from the smaller, cottage industry that exports Brazilian football coaches. In 2009 the number of those employed in the upper rungs of European club football has already doubled. There are two of them since CSKA Moscow last week took on Zico as their head coach. They follow Chelsea, who have had a Brazilian, Luiz Felipe Scolari, in charge for the past six months.
The ratio here looks startling from any distance. Nearly 1,200 Brazilian players; a mere two senior coaches. The game’s greatest talent exporter can hardly send enough young footballers to satisfy the appetite of Europe’s clubs but the chairmen and presidents who invest most readily in those athletes hardly look twice at the men who might have helped shape their talents.
This is nothing new but it remains a source of some irritation to coaches from Brazil, one of whom, Wanderley Luxemburgo, explained to this reporter candidly: “In Europe, they think Brazil is the Third World and we struggle to organise things.” He also suspected an old stereotype lingered in the European mind, that Brazilian football made all its magic because the players did their own thing, freely, and over there coaching was either a second thought or an irrelevance.
Related Links
Scolari needs win over Manchester United
Scolari faces test of his credentials
Scolari speaks language of love at Chelsea
From time to time in England, Scolari seems to imagine himself fighting a similar prejudice. The Chelsea job, he keeps being reminded, is his first in the grand theatre of club football in Europe, his first in club football at all for more than seven years. More than once he has been asked to confront the idea that, apart from winning a World Cup with the Brazil national team, his record in heavyweight duels leaves something to be desired.
Scolari, irritably, then feels obliged to list his achievements as a club head coach in Brazil. “I have won many things,” he reminded reporters before Chelsea’s trip to Old Trafford today. “I have won two Copa Libertadores, three Cups in Brazil, the Brazilian league.” He could have gone on further, pointing out he has won the premier club title of his native continent the same number of times Sir Alex Ferguson has won Europe’s equivalent.
He could have put into context the value of guiding Palmeiras to their only Libertadores title. If his spoken English was more fluent, he could have set about extinguishing any lingering impression that behind his peak triumph of the 2002 World Cup was an indistinct, uncharted past of obscure regional trinkets and some amusing tales of how he would tell Brazilian ball-boys not to let opponents take throw-ins too quickly if his Gremio side were winning.
In Brazil, those stories are ancient. But the mystery over why so few Brazilian coaches are courted with the same enthusiasm as Brazilian players persists well into the 21st century. Carlos Alberto Parreira, the last Brazil coach before Scolari, told me he thought Brazil did have some catching up to do, at least on countries such as France and even Spain, in streamlining its systems for training coaches. Parreira has been a globetrotter for much of his career, enjoying the cachet Brazilian coaching carries in Asia, Africa and America. Yet his one appointment at a big European club, Valencia, immediately after his 1994 World Cup win with Brazil, was brief and unsuccessful.
Luxemburgo coached Real Madrid for just over a year when that club had Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul and David Beckham on the staff. He was not alone in failing to turn those individuals into a championship or even a cup-winning side. He was unusual in being a Brazilian asked to do so.
The Folha de São Paulo newspaper last week had fun comparing the only Brazilians who have been given top club coaching jobs in Europe this side of the millennium: Scolari and Luxemburgo. Head to heads between Luxemburgo, 56, and Scolari, 60, once animated Brazilian domestic football — a sort of Ferguson versus Wenger with a memorable touchline incident worthy of the WWF ring — and they are now running a virtual version. The newspaper analysed Luxemburgo’s first six months in charge of Madrid in 2004-05 next to Scolari’s at Chelsea in 2008-09. In all competitions, Luxemburgo had a success rate of 72%; Scolari 66.6%. In their respective leagues, Luxemburgo’s Madrid had taken 51 points from 22 matches; Scolari will have taken Chelsea to 48 points from 22 Premiership fixtures only if they defeat Manchester United this afternoon and Stoke City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Six months into the job, half a season played, was a fair time to make judgments, acknowledged Scolari. “When I arrived I didn’t know many players,” he said. “When you arrive in a new club you have three, four, five months to look at what’s happening, but after that you’re clear in your mind what you are doing.
“I now know them all well. It is my group. It is my team. I am with them and they are with me until the last game of the season. Now is the time for me to see if I need to make decisions about the future. If I have to change something, I’ll change it. I was coach of Gremio for three and a half years. The first six months I tried to follow one idea, then it was time to change. It was the same at Palmeiras, the same with Portugal.”
Only it was not quite the same with Portugal. The difference between managing national teams and club squads has a lot to do with the management of fatigue, of concentrating the energies of a footballer over a period of one month of a tournament, rather than over the course of nine or 10.
In Brazil, there is a desire to see Scolari succeed at Chelsea. Tostao, a player in the feted 1970 world champion side and now a columnist, is intrigued. “I’ve seen the English being charmed by his style, by the warm way he deals with players and the public. If Chelsea win the Champions League for the first time, he will become a major figure in England and have an even bigger global reputation. But if things go badly, will he then show his other side, dictatorial, turning aggressive at reporters and opponents? We know that side already. How would the English react to it?”
MANAGERS WHO MADE THE MOVE EAST
OTTO GLORIA
Benfica, Sporting, Atletico Madrid and Marseilles Recruited by Benfica in the mid1950s and in two spells won four league titles and four cups. In a season with Sporting, he won another title. Less successful at Atletico Madrid and Marseilles, Gloria also took Portugal to third place at the 1966 World Cup
CARLOS ALBERTO PARREIRA
Valencia Fresh from guiding Brazil to triumph at the 1994 World Cup, Parreira was offered the Valencia job. He did not last the season and was sacked after a disappointing result in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey. Quit last year as head coach of 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa
WANDERLEY LUXEMBURGO
Real Madrid Hired in the middle of the Galaticos era, Luxemburgo lasted longer than most at the Bernabeu but had no trophies to show for his two-year spell between 2003 and 2005. Scolari’s fiercest rival for many years in domestic football, he is now coaching again in Brazil
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article5488936.ece