2024-04-03 21:29:30
The paradox has quite logical explanations.
İdman.biz presents an article with a link to soccer.ru.
The current head coach of the Brazilian national team, Dorival Junior, is unlikely to stay in his job for long. And it’s not that he’s a bad mentor. Rather, he will become a hostage to the tradition that has developed in Brazilian football. She is connected to both local trainers and local employers.
Coaching leapfrog
For Dorival Junior, his current job is his 26th in the last 22 years. His predecessor Fernando Diniz, who shared the national team job with Fluminense, changed 17 places in 13 seasons. Before him, Ramon Menezes passed through 11 seats in 10 years. But if we dig deeper, we will come across Titus. And now he seems to have become an exception. Under his leadership, the Brazilian national team participated in two World Championships. In fact, Tite led the Brazilian team longer than any other coach in history – 6 years and 3 months. But he also changed 17 jobs in 25 years before he was appointed to this position. That is, in general, he does not stand out from the general Brazilian trend towards leapfrog.
Such movements seem to contradict the basic understanding of the coaching craft. We proceed from the fact that federations choose the best available coaches for their teams. Especially when we are talking about such a titled and ambitious team as the Brazilian one. “The best available” is supposed to be somewhere between “good” and “great.” Especially in a country with a long and proud football tradition.
It is also assumed that good specialists stay in their positions because employers want to keep them longer and do everything possible to do this. The coach strives for career growth, reaches a certain point and also wants to stay there. If they quit, they look for a job of a comparable level.
But that’s not how things work in Brazil. The coaches here constantly move between teams like temporary workers. The same Dorival Junior worked the longest at Santos. And this is “the longest” – less than two years: from July 2015 to June 2017. He took charge of the team mid-season, took them to seventh place, finished third the following year, and was sacked in 2017 after four matches.
Not in demand in Europe
This goes against the prevailing philosophy in European football, where coaches are expected to take time to build a team, fine-tune it, implement their vision and achieve results. This also has one serious side effect: Brazilian coaches are generally not in demand in Europe. Because European clubs do not see any outstanding specialists in this leapfrog and flow and do not have time to consider their talents, if they exist.
You can count on one hand the number of Brazilian coaches who have worked in the top five European leagues over the past two decades. And each had its own special conditions.
Luiz Felipe Scolari had an unsuccessful performance with Chelsea in the 2008/09 season. Wanderlei Luchemburgo lasted less than a year at Real Madrid in 2005, Ricardo Gomez tried to coach Bordeaux and Monaco, Leonardo worked with Inter and Milan between 2009 and 2011, and Thiago Motta coaches in Serie A And “Bologna”.
But Scolari also had to win the World Cup with the Brazilian national team in order to attract attention in Europe. Leonardo completely abandoned coaching, going into football management, and Motta can hardly even be called a Brazilian, because he moved to Barcelona at the age of 17 and built a career in Spain, Italy and France, played for the Italian national team and received a coaching license in Europe.
And this situation seems strange. After all, Brazil and football are two concepts that seem to be created for each other. There is an incredible number of football players per capita here. One study found that of the 14,405 players who play outside their country of origin in 135 leagues around the world, 1,289 are Brazilian. Every eleventh. This is more than representatives of any other country.
Own way
But the mass training of football players for export does not at all mean the same in terms of coaches. Here you need completely different abilities, different laws of the market and craft work here. In terms of coaching, Brazil is a different world. Even compared to its neighbors from South America.
Brazilian clubs are set to operate differently. They usually sign short-term contracts with coaches and are ready to fire them easily even after several unsuccessful results. Impulsive signings and firings are common in Brazil. Usually such decisions are made under pressure from an emotional, passionate army of fans.
Due to short-term contracts, the penalties here are small, so they don’t scare the club bosses. And even if you have to pay the dismissed salary, it will not last long, because he will soon find a place in another club. Because of such running around, there are often cases of coaches returning to the same club after a while. For example, Gremio boss Renato Gaucho came to the team for the fourth time.
This leaves an imprint on the work of the specialists themselves. They do not strive for risks, experiments, or deep development. Because they don’t expect to stay at the club for a long time. They need to squeeze out some results on a fresh wave. If you’re lucky, they’ll last a year or a year and a half, and then you’ll still have to settle down in a new place.
And the fact that Brazil exports football players so actively does not contribute to stability either. Coaches cannot build a long-term development strategy, because tomorrow Porto or Benfica will come running and steal your talented guys. And everything will have to be done again.
There are also some professional features that hinder the export of coaches from Brazil. For example, the language barrier. They are in no hurry to learn English or Spanish. But Brazilian coaching licenses are not recognized everywhere in Europe. Therefore, some specialists received them in Argentina, if not in Europe itself.
But even if a European club is interested in you, it will be some weak team fighting for survival. A top club will not invite you. Why should you suffer and suffer in the middle peasants for a small salary, if you can easily earn a decent living in your Brazilian carousel? Or go to the Middle East, where there is a lot of money and less pressure.
Well, in general, European clubs are not very willing to hire coaches from outside Europe. There are 96 clubs in the top five leagues. And only eight of them are trained by specialists from outside Europe. And even then with reservations. Motta, Chelsea’s Pochettino and Hoffenheim’s Matarazzo spent most of their careers in Europe. Postecoglou and Aguirre proved themselves with the national teams at the World Championships. Simeone and Pellegrino played for a long time in Europe, and then distinguished themselves in the coaching field in Argentina before returning to the Old World. Thus, only Manuel Pellegrini from Betis remains that non-European coach who has never played there or coached a national team where he could prove himself.
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