Brazil are ready to win the World Cup again. It has not happened for 20 years, which is an awful long time for the football-crazy nation. But progress made under the coach, Tite, since he was appointed in 2016 means there is real hope as the team travel to Qatar. Importantly, the coach himself feel they are ready to go all the way.
His record as Brazil coach reads played 76 with 57 wins, 14 draws and only five defeats. The numbers in between this World Cup and the last in Russia are consistent with that (50 games, 38 wins, nine draws and three defeats) but there is an unmistakable change in mentality. Everyone is more prepared, from the players to the coaching staff, on and off the pitch.
As Tite sits down with the Guardian to discuss his hopes for Qatar, he picks out the 1-1 draw with Switzerland in 2018 to highlight one of the things he has learned from his only World Cup so far. Brazil took the lead through Philippe Coutinho but before the Swiss equaliser there was a foul on Miranda, which made Tite angry. However he did not do anything about it.
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“I know more how to focus my attention now,” he says. “I got angry during that game because it was a foul [on Miranda]. In the 10 minutes after the goal I was [moves his head like he is lost] … ‘Man it’s the World Cup and Brazil are the biggest team in the world.’ A lot of things were going through my head. Filipe Luís told me later that we need to know that everyone is looking at us, and that we have to be natural. I didn’t act naturally at that point.
“I was also naive and inexperienced. I told my players not to complain about refereeing because of VAR. It was a foul! In sport, any touch unbalances you; disturbs you, and Miranda said as much to me after the game. If and when it happens again, you need to respectfully complain and speak to the referee. We did this against Ecuador. We learned.”
Brazil have evolved as a football team too. In 2018 it was Neymar and 10 other players. And while the Paris St-Germain forward remains the biggest star of the team, now he has backup from emerging talent such as Vinícius Júnior and Raphinha. Indeed, such has been the progress of Vinícius at Real Madrid that many expect him to eclipse Neymar in Qatar.
Cléber Xavier, who has been Tite’s loyal assistant since 2001, explains in more detail what has happened between the two World Cups. “We realised after Russia that we had to change the Seleção. We lost Dani [Alves] and Renato [Augusto] before the tournament and Neymar wasn’t himself as he was carrying an injury, so we had to kind of build a new team during the tournament. Now it is completely different. If we lose a player we know much better how to deal with it. In 2018 we hadn’t had enough time to know the players inside out but now we have had that time with them.”
Tite also acknowledges that he has learned along the way. He agrees with Xavier that having had more time in the job helps. He has been able to experiment with the team but also got better at his communication. “Having had a full cycle between two World Cups will help me. The way I talk to Neymar, for example, is different to the way I talk to Dani [Alves] and I have learned that.
“There are many people in Brazil who say that you don’t need to study football, that it is an easy game and that if you, as a coach, just don’t create problems it will all be fine. I think that experience helps a coach, but so does energy too and you must always be willing to learn, to have a desire to always find new knowledge. I don’t have the same energy as some of the younger people but my coaching staff mixes experience and energy and we have someone who has won the World Cup [the CBF’s coordinator Juninho Paulista] as well.”
Tite is engaging company but there are two topics he does not want to discuss. The first is his relationship with a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari, the last Brazilian coach to win the World Cup with his country. They played together in the 1970s at Caxias and had a very good relationship for many years. But since 2012 they have not been close because of a disagreement when Scolari was in charge of Palmeiras and Tite was coach of Corinthians. Asked about Scolari, Tite’s only words are: “I have gratitude and respect for what he has done.”
The second area he is not willing to discuss is politics. The last four years in Brazil have been extraordinarily turbulent with controversy surrounding the president, Jair Bolsonaro, who will leave his position in January after losing the election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is set to embark on his second stint in power.
Tite does know, however, that this is a chance to reunite a country that has been divided under Bolsonaro’s stewardship and during the election. Now it is time for football to mend the Brazilian society and to patch up differences.
This sentiment, however, adds pressure on Tite’s team. It feels as if now, more than ever, Brazil needs a good tournament. Luckily for the coach, he has a couple of veterans in the squad he can lean on to help the younger players, such as Thiago Silva and Dani Alves, 38 and 39 respectively.
“Even if the world was falling apart they would be focused on the game,” he says. “And my focus is on the game, not on the fans or anything else. It’s about concentration. Thiago and Dani have it – they’re like animals. And their insights and instincts are fantastic. They are great leaders and set a great example by behaving the way they do.”
All eyes are focused on the 61-year-old and of course he wants to win the World Cup but Tite is phlegmatic about the month ahead. Most of all he wants just one thing; he wants to be at peace. “Whether we win or not, I want to be at peace,” he says. “At peace with myself. That’s my big desire. There are things that I can’t control. I want to do my best work and be at peace. I’m sure I can do this.”
