Much has changed for Brazil’s national team since last year’s humiliating FIFA World Cup exit, but as the 2018 qualifying campaign gets underway tomorrow, one worrying factor stays the same: the absence of superstar Neymar.
More than a year has passed since an extraordinary 7-1 meltdown against Germany in Brazil’s own World Cup.
Since then, there has been an almost equally embarrassing failure to survive the Copa America, going out to lowly Paraguay on penalties. The coach has been changed and there have been endless post-mortems.
Photo: Reuters
However, in all that turmoil, the soccer-mad nation has remained fixated on national captain and Barcelona star Neymar, and the near-obsessive fear that without him the Canarinha, as the team is called, cannot win.
He was out injured during last year’s World Cup semi-final drubbing. Then, at the Copa America against Colombia, he was red-carded and handed a four-match suspension, missing the rest of the tournament, along with his nation’s disappointing exit.
With two matches still left to run on that suspension, Neymar is to again be absent for Brazil’s 2018 opening qualifiers against Chile tomorrow and Venezuela on Tuesday next week.
A promise to improve his conduct — “I must not let myself do such stupid things,” he said in Barcelona recently — and an appeal for his suspensions to be postponed failed.
Brazil are dreading the consequences.
For pessimists, Neymar is not just important: The supremely skilled scoring machine is one of the last representatives of Brazil’s fabled jogo bonito, or beautiful game.
The question many here ask is whether the reliance on Neymar does not illustrate the broader failure of a system that focuses on exporting young talent to clubs abroad, robbing the nation of the chance to develop a whole team of Neymars.
Since his debut against the US on Aug. 10, 2010, Neymar has played 67 games for Brazil, scoring 46 times and missing only four non-friendlies.
When he has been missing, the hole has been impossible to fill.
Three of the big recent defeats — against Germany in the World Cup semi-finals, then a 3-0 loss to the Netehrlands in the third-place playoff match, and the Copa America loss to Paraguay in June — took place without Neymar.
In his absence, the team only won once in a full international — a 2-1 victory against Venezuela.
Brazil coach Dunga is pleading for fans and team members alike to stop looking over their shoulder for the absent savior.
“We would like to have Neymar, but it is not possible. We need to focus on the players who will be there with us,” Dunga said when he announced the team on Sept. 17.
However, Dunga himself is as much responsible as anyone for Neymar’s coronation as the lynchpin of a team that was desperate for a new start when he took over from former Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari after the World Cup.
The striker was on an incredible roll, building up to winning the treble with Barcelona and happy to be made Brazilian captain in place of Thiago Silva, a player whose reputation sank with the World Cup flop.
Neymar did not disappoint and ahead of the fateful Copa America, Dunga boasted 10 out of 10 victories in friendlies.
However, what no one foresaw — or prepared for — was that the brilliant teammate of Messi and Luis Suarez at Barcelona would lose his composure and see red against Colombia. In addition to his immaturity on the pitch, Neymar is running into tax problems back home.
Still, he remains the big hope and Brazil soccer fans are counting the days until his return from suspension against great rivals Argentina in Buenos Aires next month.
Yu Yao-hsing on Tuesday nabbed Taiwan’s only goal in the final round of qualifiers for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, as they fell 3-1 to Sri Lanka at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Early goals from Sri Lanka in the first half left Taiwan struggling to get on the board, and Christopher Tiao’s own goal at 53 minutes sealed the team’s fate in the third round of qualifiers. While acknowledging that the defeat, Taiwan’s sixth in Group D, was disappointing, head coach Matt Ross said he saw reasons to stay positive about the team’s development. “There were lots of positive signs in terms of the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
INDIGESTION: Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for a third consecutive time after a 4-1 defeat to Bosnia on penalties in a loss Gattuso said was ‘difficult to digest’ Coach Graham Arnold on Tuesday challenged his players to “shock the world” after Iraq became the 48th and final team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup with a nerve-shredding 2-1 win over Bolivia in an intercontinental playoff in Mexico, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also secured their places at the finals. Iraq, whose preparations were disrupted by the war in the Middle East, sealed their first appearance at the finals in 40 years and are to play in Group I against France, Senegal and Norway. Goals from Ali al-Hamadi
Teng Kai-wei, the only Taiwanese player on an opening-day roster in this year’s Major League Baseball (MLB) season, took his first win of the year with the Houston Astros in his season debut. Teng entered in relief in the top of the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday, with the Astros trailing 5-0. He pitched 2-1/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts, as Houston scored 11 runs during his outing to snatch an 11-9 comeback victory. The win is the Astros’ first of the season and the third of Teng’s MLB career. “It’s my first time pitching for the Astros, so
RSS