Lean;2902961 said:
Firstly, as I highlit, yes, Leonardo screwed but he made his way back to Seleção and to the stand of a respectable player and citizen even though. That particular moment did not affect him and his career because everything that followed in his life proves so - he was a PSG, Kashima and Milan's dear boy. And he earned it. So, I don't belive he's nowhere lesser than Dunga as a player because of that particular mistake.
About his childish attiude about captaincy - well, consider that back then, Luxemburgo was the coach. And Luxemburgo saved the best seats for his pupils and boyfriends - I meant the latter literally. Remember Muller? I'd ask to leave too, if I knew what he knows and saw what he saw.
In terms of experience, of course, now, 4 years after Dunga is more experienced than Leonardo. But we're taking the context in consideration here, the choice of a new coach for a so called urgent fresh start for Brazil NT. And if we got this Leonardo and took him back in time in a DeLorean to 2006, he'd be more experienced than Dunga. That's what I'm talking about.
And anyway, about the rest of what you stated - it's sad but it's true. But I'm not so hopeful and optmistic like you are. As brazilians, we're too unguarded or afraid to admit that our fountain of good players had been drying out by the years. Perahps we're still not certain about stating that because eventually a Dani Alves - who never made a career down here - would show up. Who knows, we silently think, someone out of Netherlands, Spain or Russia, who left Brazil when was still 13, 12 begin a shining path until 2014...But I'm too cold when it comes to that matter, the 'conception' of brazilian players.
The new coach will have a hard time finding Seleção-worth players. Everybody here claims for Ganso and Neymar. But when you remember than Ganso kicked Ronaldo willfully - we're talking about the goddamn Ronaldo here - to 'show him he wasn't playing home, he was at Santos'', when you remember how arrogant that boy was; when you also remember that Neymar and his earrings, his self bloated talk in interviews...do you really believe we have options? You mentioned Dunga and his carachter, what about those?
I blame it on CBF, big time. I know I might be stoned here, but when we had our traditional Brazilian Championship, not league, we had a whole team of great, promising, young or potential stars who showed what they were made of at the end of the playoffs. It was a weird, even disrespectful dispute format, but it was good for our football, specially for our NT. In almost every season end, specially the season before the Cup, it was like a NBA draft for the Seleção.
Now, do you remember when it was the last time our League produced a single player, even a single one that you could point at and tell: 'this is going to be a 10 for our NT'? I do. It was Robinho. In 2002, the last year of playoffs. Since 2003, the league format start, Brazil, surprisingly - not for me - has no 'technical' strenght or 'technical' carachter to go beyond the quarter finals.
It was a duty for a breaking star or an expensive player in a club back then, to create something in a playoff game - either to increase his team advantage (the draw advantage) or to turn the playoff in his team's favor. These obstacles were a routine, a final stage of graduation for our players, it was the moment when a brazilian player's football was forged, purified and received the seal of approval. What do we see now - we have brazilian players that stand static, helpless watching a France going 1-0 or a Ned going 2-1, and not having forces to change it. It has very little to do with who you have on the bench. It has to do with spirit. And that spirit was perfectioned brazilian style in our playoffs.
When the players of a Brazil NT in a World Cup knew what was going on in Brazilian's Championship, and when the top players of the Championship eventually were called to be part of the NT, and they gave their best to show that they deserved to be in the starting 11, that moved the whole team. Those ones who took it for granted had to play and train better so they'd keep their places. That was the effect caused by the players forged and strongened by our playoff system. Fact. It made the whole team change, play better and seek for the results more determinedly.
I think Leonardo can't change that back, CBF won't do it. But he has the capability to convince players to stay and others to come back, elevating the quality of our league and maybe, bringing some of that dispute, which led our players to become sharper and really brazilians, back.
