The Brazilian Press Desperate for Bad News

It must be too hard to be the number one. The Brazilian National Soccer Team is currently on the top of the FIFA's world ranking, closely followed by the Spanish team, and this position brings a lot of pressure to win this World Cup Edition. They won the last international competitions (Confederations Cup, America Cup, and first position in South America World Cup qualifiers), starring great and, sometimes, heroic matches, combined with the natural joy that comes with the Brazilian style of playing. So, it is not a surprise to be considered the favorite by 40% of 30 thousand people in a survey made all over the world.

But a lot of success brings a lot of negativity. The Brazilian press has been extremely critic about the team, and they obviously get frustrated when Brazil wins. In the great final of the Confederations Cup, for example, Brazil won USA by 3 x 2, but the fact that USA made two goals in the first half (but Brazil turned the match, making 3 during the second half) was enough to the press start criticizing the defensive system. Nowadays, they don't like the player selection made by Dunga, the coach. Dunga's criteria were simple: the player should:

1. honor the Brazilian team uniform;
2. be part of the team as an individual, not an individual in the team;
3. be simple, fine with absence of luxury;
4. be humble, accepting decisions of the coach; and
5. be disciplined and master his tactical position in the team.

It ended up with a team without stars like Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Pato; young promises like Ganso and Neimar; and undisciplined players like Adriano and Vagner Love. Actually, Ronaldinho  never was convincing when playing for the national team, always criticized, but now journalists want him, why? Ronaldo is fat, already stated as not prepared for the competition, but some still have said that he deserves being in the squad. Come on! Ganso and Neimar are doing very very well in national competitions, but, strangely, Santos is not wining recent matches. Are they unmotivated now? How can we deal with such immaturity?

Luis Fabiano is one of the main scorers, besides Robinho, but journalists are saying that he is having a goal drought because he didn't score in the last two matches. Come on! The last two matches were against Zimbabwe and Tanzania during the preparation phase where players were scared to get hurt before their first world cup match. The press is forcing an individualistic behavior, emphasizing individual achievements, but the coach was clear since the beginning, that they are a team and they will behave like a team. The international press is less pragmatic, maybe more realistic, perhaps. New York Times stated: "Brazil has what one former World Cup player called "a luxury problem" - too many supremely talented players and not enough room to include them all on a team sheet.".

I'm optimistic, I support 100% the Brazilian Squad and I can't wait for this Tuesday match against North Korea. The players will finally have a chance to stop or at least minimize those critics.