Ageing Brazil need major surgery - but is Ancelotti the man to do it?

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Figure caption,

Haaland sends Norway into the quarter-finals as Brazil crash out

ByTim VickeryBBC Sport

Published8 minutes ago

Four years ago Brazil were unlucky to go out of the World Cup to Croatia in the quarter-finals. Four years prior that they were also slightly unfortunate to fall to Belgium at the same stage. This time they failed even to get that far and there was nothing unlucky about their loss to Norway.

This, frankly, is an unmitigated disaster.

Carlo Ancelotti arrived with his band aid after a 4-1 thrashing by Argentina in March of last year.

Of his 16 games in charge of the national team he has won 10, drew three and lost three. He turned around a side that had struggled in World Cup qualifying, losing four out of five games prior to his arrival.

But that has not proved enough.

Brazil now need major surgery - starting with the area of the field where they used to be so strong, so creative, so entrancing - the midfield.

Turning their back on imaginative central midfield play has lost Brazil some friends along the way, and it is also losing them matches. The fact that they were comprehensively outpassed by Norway on a warm summer's afternoon at this World Cup is simply astonishing - but it has to do with the make up of the side.

Ancelotti was a hostage to Casemiro. The first thing the coach did was recall the player from 18 months in the international wilderness.

There were plusses. Casemiro gave the team structure and freed Bruno Guimaraes, who until his early missed penalty against Norway - and what a difference that might have made - was enjoying a fine tournament.

But Casemiro's vulnerability in open space was always a problem - clear in the second minute when Norway had a goal disallowed. And so the way Brazil defended was to drop deep and watch Norway exchange their passes and grow in confidence.

And then there is the absence of Lucas Paqueta, injured in the previous round against Japan. Ancelotti confessed that he did not have another player with the same characteristics. In came Arsenal's Gabriel Martinelli, which had the effect of making the team's attack almost entirely dependent on quick direct breaks.

The coach made an error with his initial call up - having only five midfielders was a serious lapse, and when right back Wesley was injured in the final warm-up game Ancelotti used the opportunity to bring in potential Manchester United signing Ederson. But if the coach is to blame then so is the country.

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Was this Neymar's final goal for Brazil?

Brazil is producing more wide strikers than it knows what to do with, but not enough quality midfielders.

And then there is Neymar. This one is all on the coach. True, the context was not easy. A star-struck public was howling for his inclusion, blind to the weekly evidence that he was nowhere near the player he used to be.

Ancelotti said that Neymar would only be called up if he deserved the place, that he would not take any injured players - and broke every red line for Neymar.

In a cameo against Scotland he looked like a retired player wandering on for a charity match. It was frankly astonishing that Ancelotti turned to him this time, for a live game. It meant a rejig.

Without the mobility to work back, Neymar had to be used at centre-forward, pushing both Vinicius Jr and Endrick out wide and deeper - further away from the goal, exactly where they should not have been. It opened up the side and, at last, Norway began to get decent service into Erling Haaland. It was all he needed.

Neymar ended the day with his goal from the penalty spot. But he probably should already have been sent-off for a wild kick, a last petulant gesture before he leaves the scene. In his prime he was a magnificent talent, a borderline genius, but this is the end of the line - as it is for many of an ageing squad.

After the match he indicated that this is indeed the end of the line for him, saying: "I tried, I tried... now it's over! I started here, I finished here," he told Brazilian channel ge tv, in reference to making his debut at the same stadium in New Jersey for a friendly against the United States in 2010.

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Brazil's elimination leaves Neymar in tears

"I don't think this is the end. I think this is the start of a new cycle," Ancelotti insisted after the Norway loss.

"What I can say, what we can do and what we are going to do, is keep working hard for the national team, keep trying to improve and find new ideas.

"I think we have done a good job, but this is football and this is sport. You just have to deal with it, deal with the sadness and the taste of defeat.

"I am very much used to this and we will handle this. We will use it as fuel going forward."

The build up to 2030, then, starts now.

Qualification will be absurdly easy - Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are already there as hosts, staging one game each as a gesture of celebration for the World Cup centenary.

Ancelotti is on a big long-term contract. Is he the man to carry out a massive overhaul? Or is he best as the fixer? The man who with a tweak here and a raised eyebrow there has accumulated triumphs all over Europe.

But not with Brazil. Not this time. Will there be a next time?