Month: March 2024

I know I should write a match preview, but I want to talk a bit about Brazil’s first game under Dorival Júnior. I may write something more cohesive once we see how the game against Spain goes, but I wanted to commit to getting these thoughts out into the open.

So! Dorival’s debut exceeded expectations, as Brazil beat England for the first time in the “new” Wembley Stadium. Considering the quality on paper of the opposition, it might well have been the most impressive debut result for a Seleção coach this century. Dorival has passed a very tough first test, and though England went a little flat as the game went on, there was a lot to like in Brazil’s performance, as well as a few things I took issue with. So, have a list of pros and cons:

Brazil vs. England

Wembley Stadium, London, England, March 23, 2024

Kickoff: 3:00PM EST / 4:00 PM BRT / 7:00 PM GMT

US TV: FOX

Likely Starting Lineup: Bento; Danilo, Fabrício Bruno, Beraldo, Wendell; João Gomes, Bruno Guimarães, Lucas Paquetá; Raphinha, Rodrygo, Vini Jr.

On The Bench: Léo Jardim, Rafael; Yan Couto, Ayrton Lucas, Bremer, Murilo; André, Andreas Pereira, Douglas Luiz, Pablo Maia; Endrick, Pepê, Galeno, Richarlison, Savinho.

Notes and Storylines

In the, um, extremely long time since I last wrote a post on here, I’ve been thinking about our now-former coach, Fernando Diniz, whose six-game tenure in charge of Brazil spiraled down the toilet in remarkable style. A 5-1 debut win against Bolivia was fun but very much expected; following that up a couple days later with a listless performance and a late winner from a corner against Peru was concerning. By the next pair of games a month later, conceding a late equalizer to Venezuela at home and then losing in dismal fashion to Uruguay, the alarm bells were well and truly clanging. Losses in November to Colombia and Argentina added to Diniz’s lists of unfortunate achievements (first time Brazil had lost three qualifiers in a row, first time they’d lost a qualifier at home to Argentina) and sealed his fate. Diniz has a signature style of football, one that, on paper, hews closer to the romantic image of jogo bonito than most Brazil teams of the past thirty or forty years, and that’s why he got the job. With the limited training time afforded to national teams, and with Diniz still coaching Fluminense at the same time (with real success, to be fair)—or maybe just because Diniz was too tactically blind to adjust to changing game states or too wedded to his ideas to temper them with the slightest bit of pragmatism—he couldn’t make it work for Brazil.