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.
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