Brazil in the World Cup 2010

The Brazilian Football Federation announced today that the Brazilian team will play two friendly matches before the World Cup.

Brazil will play against Zimbabwe on June 2nd and against Tanzania on June 7th; the venues were not informed yet.

Update, May 27th: CBF confirmed today that the match against Zimbabwe will be in the National Stadium of Zimbabwe, and the match against Tanzania will be in the capital of that country, Dar es Salaam.

Brazil won Zimbabwe by 3 x 0, goals by Michel Bastos, Robinho and Elano.

Brazil won Tanzania by 5 x 1, goals by Robinho, Kaka and Ramirez.

Zimbabwe and Tanzania are African countries, with very little tradition in football; both teams rank  worse than #100 in the FIFA ranking.

According to coach Dunga, there is not much more to improve in the team; the matches will be useful to change Brazil’s mode from training to playing. The last serious friendly match, which Dunga probably used to define the lineup of Brazil in South Africa, was against Ireland, last March.

Brazil is training in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. The team will fly to South Africa on May 26th. The first official match of Brazil in the World Cup 2010 will be on June 15th, against North Korea.

Note: besides not being useful to help in the preparation of the team, some say that the game against Zimbabwe could raise political problems, as that country is ruled by a dictator, Robert Mugabe. However, these friendly matches are arranged by CBF, the Brazilian Confederation, which is guided primarily by financial reasons (Brazil doesn’t set foot in an stadium for less than US$ 1 million).

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Em português:
Uniforme do Brasil

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Final list of Brazil players in the World Cup 2010:

Goalkeepers:
Julio Cesar (Internazionale Milan)
Gomes (Tottenham)
Doni (Roma)

Wings:
Maicon (Internazionale Milan)
Daniel Alves (Barcelona)
Gilberto (Cruzeiro)
Michel Bastos (Lyon)

Defense:
Lucio (Internazionale Milan)
Juan (Roma)
Luisão (Benfica)
Thiago Silva (Milan)

Midfielders:
Gilberto Silva (Panathinaikos)
Felipe Melo (Juventus)
Josué (Wolfsburg)
Kleberson (Flamengo)
Elano (Galatasaray)
Ramires (Benfica)
Kaká (Real Madrid)
Julio Baptista (Roma)

Forward:
Luís Fabiano (Sevilla)
Robinho (Santos)
Nilmar (Villarreal)
Grafite (Wolfsburg)

It may seem to many casual watchers that coach Dunga is in a permanent bad humor mood. However, Dunga himself and several of his current and past fellow workers say that, outside the pitch, he is a good humored, easy going guy.

To journalists who follow the Brazilian team, the real bad guy of the staff is Jorginho, whose official position is “auxiliar técnico”, or “techical assistant”. Jorginho is the guy to the right side of Dunga in most interviews, trainings or any other event related to the Brazilian team.

In practice, what Jorginho does very often is to defend Dunga against criticizers; this is similar to what happened in 1994, when coach Parreira (also much criticized) had Zagallo to defend him.  Last week, when the Brazilian players for  2010 were announced, Dunga was much calmer than usual, and Jorginho took for himself the task of defending the choices made by them (and there is no doubt that Dunga listened to Jorginho’s opinions before defining the roster).

Jorginho was a successful player, having been in the Brazilian team champion of the World Cup 1994; he played in Flamengo and in several important teams in Germany.

Dunga and Jorginho have been friends since 1982, when they played in the sub-20 Brazil team, and won the World Title in 1983 (Dunga and Jorginho, along with Bebeto, were appointed as rising stars of that tournament).

After retiring from the fields, Jorginho started a short career as coach. When Dunga became coach of the Brazilian team, the first person he called to his staff was Jorginho.

Jorginho is not only a member, but also a founder and current President of the NGO Atletas de Cristo (Athletes of Christ), a group of Evangelicals which congregate several Sports people in Brazil. He said in an interview that only after finding Jesus did he manage to quit alcoholism and become a successful man.

In the Brazilian team, two of the most important players, Lucio and Kaká, are member of the group; the influence of the group is stronger, though, and explains why the entire team was praying on their knees after recent victories.

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Dunga fulfilled his promise: there were no surprises.

This is the roster of 23 players, announced by coach Dunga today, May 11th:

Goalkeepers:
Julio Cesar (Internazionale Milan)
Gomes (Tottenham)
Doni (Roma)

Wings:
Maicon (Internazionale Milan)
Daniel Alves (Barcelona)
Gilberto (Cruzeiro)
Michel Bastos (Lyon)

Defense:
Lucio (Internazionale Milan)
Juan (Roma)
Luisão (Benfica)
Thiago Silva (Milan)

Midfielders:
Gilberto Silva (Panathinaikos)
Felipe Melo (Juventus)
Josué (Wolfsburg)
Kleberson (Flamengo)
Elano (Galatasaray)
Ramires (Benfica)
Kaká (Real Madrid)
Julio Baptista (Roma)

Forward:
Luís Fabiano (Sevilla)
Robinho (Santos)
Nilmar (Villarreal)
Grafite (Wolfsburg)

This roster is nearly exactly the same as the one Dunga announced for the last match of the Brazilian team before the World Cup (a match against Ireland that Brazil won by 2 x 0);  the only difference is that Adriano (who had a series of personal problems lately) was replaced by Grafite.

Below, a photo of the line up which started playing against Ireland:

Maicon, Gilberto Silva, Julio Cesar, Juan, Adriano and Lucio.
Ramirez, Robinho, Kaka, Michel Bastos and Felipe Melo.

Dunga will send a list of 30 players to FIFA (the 23 above and other 7 potential substitutes), and can still make changes until June 1st (replacing any of the23 by any of the other 7). However, as a means to make it clear that the 23 principals were already chosen, Dunga didn’t want to announce today the name of the other 7 players.

Update. Later today, after everyone had already absorbed the impact of the 23 players, Dunga announced the  7 reserves: Ronaldinho (Milan), Paulo Henrique Ganso (Santos), Alex (Chelsea), Marcelo (Real Madrid), Diego Tardelli (Atletico MG) and Carlos Eduardo (Hoffenheim).

Now that the Qualifying is over and all countries to participate in World Cup 2010 are defined, it’s time to start talk about bettings, odds, and favorites to win the World Cup.

FIFA just announced the ranking of the best countries in the year so far. Do betters agree with FIFA?

The table below shows who are favourites, according to betters of Ladbrokes, the most traditional betting house in England (table is online today, November 23rd; bets are accepted till December 4th).

According to them, Spain is the main favorite to win the World Cup, with odds of 4:1 (betters make US$ 4 for each US$ 1 they bet). Brazil is second, with slightly higher odds of 9:2 (or 4.5:1). Other relevant candidates to winning are, in order: England, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Holland, Portugal and France. Countries with the highest odds (not shown in the table above) are North Korea (350:1), Honduras and New Zealand (both with 500:1).

Below, the current betting odds at William Hill, one of the major houses in the United States. Among the top ten favorites, the only difference between Americans and British betters is at 8th and 9th position, where France and Portugal switch positions.

Below, the odds at Sports Betting, another major American house; also, no change among the top favorites:

A few remarks about these odds: all but one ex-champions are among the favorites (the only exception is Uruguay); Spain, the top favorite so far (Spain is also favorite according to other parties, such as Goal and Eurosport), is top of the FIFA rankings, current European champion, and qualified to the Cup winning ten out of ten matches (in a group which included also Turkey, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and Armenia); Brazil, as usual, is among the top favorites (not surprisingly, as Brazil finished first in the Qualifying, with three rounds in advance); Argentina had a very difficult time to secure a slot in the Cup, but also, as usual, ranks among the favorites.

How accurate are these odds? In 2006, the absolute favorite was Brazil, but the team failed long before the finals; the same happened in 2002, when France was favorite, and in 1998, when Argentina was favorite.

The History of World Cups show that not always the favorite wins, and one of the “usual suspects” take the title.

Today, November 18th 2009, Uruguay became the 32nd and last country to confirm presence in the World Cup 2010.

The following countries will play the finals of the World Cup 2010:

South Africa: host country, only pre-qualified country (until 1994 2002 – rectified, thanks to the commenter who pointed the mistake – the previous winner was also qualified  - France, winner of 1998, was the last one to benefit from this).

From Africa: Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon.

From Asia/Oceania: Japan, Australia, North Korea, South Korea, New Zealand.

From North and Central America: Honduras, USA and Mexico.

From Europe: Netherlands, Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Serbia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Portugal, Slovenia, Greece, France.

From South America: Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

In World Cup finals, Brazil has already played against: Cameroon (1994), Algeria (1978), Japan (2006), New Zealand (1982), Australia (2006), USA (1994), Netherlands (1974, 1994, 1998), Spain (1934, 1950, 1978, 1986), England (1958, 1970, 2002), Italy (1938, 1970, 1978, 1982, 1994), Germany (1974, 2002), Switzerland (1950), Denmark (1998), Portugal (1966), France (1958, 1986, 1998, 2006), Mexico (1950, 1954, 1962), Chile (1962, 1998), Argentina (1974, 1978, 1982, 1990)  and Uruguay (1950, 1970).

Brazil also played against Yugoslavia (1930, 1950, 1954, 1974) and the Czech Republic (1938, 1962 and 1970), which later would  split and give origin to Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia. Considering also these split-ups, none of the countries is making a first appearance in the World Cups finals.

All previous World Champions will be in South Africa. Also, all major football countries will be there, (see this comparison between countries in the Cup versus FIFA rankings).

The 32 teams will be divided into eight groups; the draw will occur on December 4th 2009. The draw will be conducted in such a way that all groups will have stronger, strong, weak and weaker countries (as per FIFA judgment).

After the draw, this blog will recall past performances of Brazil against their first three adversaries.