Copa America: Brazil

Brazil

Everybody’s second favourite national team Brazil kickoff their 2011 Copa America campaign this evening with a straightforward looking match against Venezuela. The Selecao come into the tournament aiming for a third successive title and a fifth in the last six editions.

Overall Brazil, the five-time world champions, are third with eight Copa America titles behind all-time joint leaders Argentina and Uruguay both with 14 titles in the bag.

But as at all previous tournaments most foreign eyes will be fixed on Brazil, the team of Samba Football.

Bearing in mind the ridiculous quantity of talent from Brazil picking a national team has to be one of the toughest jobs on earth. It is a job that has faced Mano Menezes and needless to say he left dissenting voices aplenty. One of the biggest surprises in his squad is the selection of Fluminense captain Fred ahead of Villarreal striker Nilmar and Internacional hitman Leandro Damiao who has impressed recently in the regional Gaucho State Championship and is a target for several European clubs.

Fred’s ticket seems to have been sealed by his winner in Ronaldo’s goodbye game for the Selecao, a 1-0 win victory over Romania last month. The former Lyon forward is one of four strikers in the Brazil 22-man squad alongside Robinho, Alexandre Pato and Neymar. However none is a renowned goal-scorer, like Ronaldo for example...

The squad also sees no Kaka and no Ronaldinho.

Nevertheless, with the inclusion of Santos starlet Ganso it is hoped this will be a more offensive minded Brazil than we have become accustomed to seeing over the last three years or so.

This in short is why this Copa America championship is actually a very important one for Brazil. Once everybody’s favourite team, Brazil have unreservedly lost the tag of being the kings of football – that title now belongs to world champions Spain, and that is now the spiritual home of football.

In  what is an ever continuing battle for football hearts and minds the challenge for Brazil at this Copa America is to prove they can still produce their silky football or they face a further tarnishing of what was once an almost mystical reputation.

Bad decisions all-round have been made over the past six years and they have brought the Brazil team here, struggling for its identity.

This Copa America tournament starts in a week where Brazil have fallen to fifth in the Fifa world rankings and it’s easy to forget that six years ago Brazil were the team. The 2005 Fifa Confederations Cup winning team, captained by Ronaldinho, was the last great Brazil side, a team that played a style of football that hasn’t been replicated since, even by the current all-conquering Spain. It was a super team playing with freedom and fantasy. But after reaching the 2006 World Cup quarterfinals Brazil slowly drifted to a stale type of football that has lost the side a lot of admirers.

Will Brazil be celebrating more goals?

There has been hope the Menezes era will bring back some of that swagger. In the build-up to Brazil’s opener he has suggested that he will deploy a 4-2-1-3 formation. “We’ve already played like this, against Holland for example,” Menezes said recently. “We didn’t manage to win, but we used the formation well in the second-half. The option to use this formation compliments the players’ characteristics.”

Julio Cesar will of course start in goals and in front of him he will have captain Lucio and Thiago Silva in a solid looking back three.

Dani Alves, the world’s best right-back in the world, will do his thing on the right and it is hoped he and left-back Andre Santos will do the traditional job of the Brazilian fullback. Their adventure will in many ways dictate how well Brazil do in this tournament.

However, and worryingly, Brazil’s midfield doesn’t look particularly creative and this has been the problem with Brazil teams in recent years – a lack of imagination and the absence of a link between the defence, midfield and attack.

Brazil nevertheless remain one of the favourites for the trophy because they are Brazil. They will make it out of their Group B and will probably make it to the final on July 24. But if truth be told, above winning,  this 2011 Copa America is a tournament of redemption for Brazil. Brazil is slowly losing the aura it once had and it’s up to Menezes’ side to begin to restablish it, especially with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil around the corner. 

The Selecao is almost boring, something which would have been considered blasphemy just six years ago.

Brazil Squad
Goalkeepers: Victor (Gremio), Julio Cesar (Inter)

Defenders: Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Maicon (Inter), Andre Santos (Fenerbahce), Adriano (Barcelona), Lucio (Inter), Thiago Silva (Milan), David Luiz (Chelsea) Luisao (Benfica)

Midfielders: Lucas Leiva (Liverpool), Ramires (Chelsea), Sandro (Tottenham), Jadson (Shakhtar Donetsk), Elias (Atletico Madrid), Elano (Santos), Paulo Henrique Ganso (Santos), Lucas Silva (Sao Paulo)

Forwards: Robinho (Milan), Alexandre Pato (Milan), Fred (Fluminense), Neymar (Santos)

Probable Brazil XI

Julio Cesar

Dani Alves   Thiago Silva    Lucio      Santos

Lucas    Ramires

Ganso

Robinho    Pato    Neymar

Brazil’s Group C fixtures
Venezuela (Sunday, July 3), Paraguay (Saturday, July 9), Ecuador (Wednesday, July 13)