Brazil team 2010 – players who will not be there
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November 21st, 2009
Who will be the 23 Brazilian players who will be in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup?
Brazil qualified early (three rounds in advance) to the Cup; coach Dunga used the last two matches in the Qualifying and two friendly matches in Dubai (against England and Oman) more to test alternative players (such as Hulk, who left Brazil at age 15, plays currently in Portugal and was unknown to most Brazilians) than to practice with a definitive team.
The final Brazil roster will be announced only in March 2010, after Brazil plays the last friendly match before heading to Africa. Until there, nobody knows (not even the coach Dunga) who will be chosen.
However, if it is hard to tell who will be there, it is possible to point some players who will not be there.
Most of the players of the 2006 World Cup are not in the team any more. Dida, Cafu, Juan, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo (read what Dunga said about Ronaldo), Ronaldinho, Zé Roberto and Juninho all started playing against France and have not been rostered by Dunga.
Other possible absences in 2010 will be Adriano (currently in Flamengo, will probably be the main striker of the Brazilian Championship of 2009), Alexandre Pato, Diego (playing in Italy, listed by FIFA as candidate to player of the year 2009).
Dunga, from the beginning, made it clear that, when judging the players of the Brazilian team, more important than self-marketing or even skill, was the team spirit (Dunga himself was not the most skillful of the teams of 1990, 1994 and 1998, but certainly was one with the strongest team spirit).
This helps explain why, for example, Ronaldinho is out of the team. Many considered Ronaldinho the main failure of 2006, much because he was more concerned with the hype around his performances than with playing for the team. Dunga kept Ronaldinho out in the first rosters; called him and left him and Kaká in the bench a few times (so as to teach them some humility). Dunga even took Ronaldinho to the Olympics in China, but it seems he wasn’t satisfied with his performances.
So, when the final roster comes, the list may bring some surprises: players like Felipe Melo and Elano, who are not stars but play for the team, can be listed in place of stars like Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, who, according to Dunga, play in a too selfish way.