The coach of Sao Paulo FC, Dorival Junior, will be the new coach of Brazil, the Paulista club announced in a press release released on Sunday, an announcement that has not yet been confirmed by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).
Taking charge of the Brazilian selection “is a personal dream come true”, comments the coach, aged 61, in the press release from his club, with which he won the Brazilian Cup last year. He was expected to take over from Fernando Diniz, sacked on Friday barely six months after his arrival at the head of a Brazilian selection lacking results.
Sacked after clash with Neymar
Winner of the Brazilian Cup and the Copa Libertadores (the South American equivalent of the Champions League) in 2022 with Flamengo, Dorival, a former professional player, became a coach in 2003. Having worked for numerous Brazilian clubs, he notably had under his orders Neymar Jr at the very beginning of the Brazilian striker’s career, at Santos.
A violent clash took place between the two men in 2010 when the player, then aged 18, criticized his coach for having instructed one of his teammates to take a penalty. The club’s management took Neymar’s side and sacked Dorival six days later.
Gap year in Europe
Which did not prevent him from having a long career, marked by a sabbatical year in 2015. He then traveled across Europe to draw inspiration from the methods in vogue in clubs like Chelsea, AS Roma, Real Madrid or even Bayern Munich then cornered by Pep Guardiola.
The sixty-year-old has only coached in his country, where he successively had the reins of most of the big clubs, from Flamengo to Sao Paulo via Vasco da Gama and Cruzeiro.
Crisis climate
By leaving Sao Paulo FC, this former defensive midfielder recovers a Seleçao far from his standards. A year after its elimination in the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by Croatia, the “canarinha” has only won two of the six matches it has played since the start of the South American qualifications for the 2026 World Cup. Reduced by injuries, including that of Neymar, victim of a torn knee ligament during the defeat against Uruguay in October, she notably lost to Argentina (1-0), in her home legendary Maracana.
Diniz’s succession comes in a climate weighed down by the institutional crisis which is shaking Brazilian football: the president of the CBF Ednaldo Rodrigues, dismissed at the beginning of December by a court in Rio, was reinstated last week in his functions by decision of a judge of the Supreme Court.
The decision of the Carioca court had invalidated a previous agreement between the CBF and the Rio prosecutor’s office, dating from March 2022, which had allowed the election of the first black president of the federation. But FIFA and the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) did not view this court decision favorably, refusing any state interference in the affairs of the CBF. Brazil are scheduled to face Spain and England in friendlies in March.