The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) announced on Wednesday that Dorival Junior, a Copa Libertadores and Brazilian Cup winner while managing Flamengo, has been elected the new coach of Brazil.
The five-time world champions will be headed by the 61-year-old after a rocky period following their 2022 World Cup departure due to a penalty shootout loss to Croatia, which resulted in coach Tite’s dismissal.
Prior to Fernando Diniz’s temporary appointment as Brazil’s Under-20 coach last year, Ramon Menezes oversaw the team.
On Friday, Diniz was fired, one day after Ednaldo Rodrigues, who had been fired in early December by the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice, was reinstalled as the chairman of the CBF.
Dorival was the front-runner to replace Rodrigues, who had intended to appoint Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti,
but he chose to extend his Real Madrid contract after the negotiations broke down. The men’s national team’s new coach is Dorival Junior.
This Thursday at the CBF offices in Rio de Janeiro, there will be a press conference where he will be presented, according to a statement from the CBF.
Before joining Sao Paulo, who announced his departure on Sunday, Dorival, who has coached Atletico Mineiro, Atletico Paranaense, Internacional, Vasco da Gama, Fluminense, and Palmeiras, guided Flamengo to the Copa Libertadores and Copa do Brasil in 2022.
Regaining Brazil’s past splendor won’t be simple. With two victories from six games and three losses, Dorival takes charge of a struggling team that has had a difficult start to their South American World Cup qualification campaign.
They now rank sixth in the standings.They have only made it to the semifinals five times in the five World Cup tournaments since they last advanced to the final in 2002, when they won the trophy for the final time.
After failing to win the World Cup trophy, a number of managers have came and gone.Under Carlos Alberto Parreira, they were ousted by France in the round of eight at the 2006 German event.
In 2010, they fell to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals while Dunga was in charge. After Mano Menezes left, Luiz Felipe Scolari took over for a second time as their manager, guiding them to their fifth and final World Cup victory.
However, his dreams of taking them to victory on home soil in 2014 were dashed in a devastating 7-1 semi-final loss to Germany.
Brazil was one of the favorites to win the championship in 2018 in Qatar and Russia, four years after Tite took over as manager, but they both lost in the quarterfinals. – News reports
