Brazil: Dunga's Central Midfield Headache

With the 2010 World Cup in South Africa fast approaching, Dunga’s Brazil squad has a long way to go before the final group is established.

Dunga’s tactics are unique, and one of the defining characteristics of his Brazil team is the use of two holding midfield players.

As a player, Dunga played in this role captaining Brazil’s 94 World Cup champions and Brazil’s 98 finalists.

He clearly sees great value in providing a defensive foundation in the midfield that is capable of regaining position in order for the creative midfielders such as Ronaldinho, Elano, or Kaka to create chances.   

As of yet, however, Dunga has struggled to find the right players to accomplish that goal.

The only consistently selected player for this role has been Panathiakos midfielder Gilberto Silva.

Although Gilberto Silva is an intelligent player who plays a leadership role on the team, he struggles to perform what is needed from this position. Unfortunately, Gilberto Silva lacks the athleticism necessary to cover the ground and do the “dirty work.”

It seems Dunga has a soft spot for Gilberto Silva; however as the World Cup approaches he must be eying some of the new blood for the spot.

The most recent player given a chance to fill that role is Fiorentina’s Felipe Melo. In his first appearance for Brazil in a friendly against Italy, Felipe Melo was paired alongside Gilberto Silva forming that defensive duo at the heart of the Brazil lineup.

Melo demonstrated both in the friendly and later in World Cup qualifier against Peru (in which scored) that he has the athleticism that Brazil has long been lacking there.

Although he does not have the maturity of Gilberto Silva, he proved himself a strong tackler and reasonable distributor of the ball. His determination was an injection of energy in the duo usually composed of Josue and Gilberto Silva.

Assistant coach Jorginho recognized Felipe Melo's contribution to the team by stating about his performance against Italy that “This is the type of posture we need from a player. He came in (to the Brazil team) very well and conquered his space.”

Felipe Melo is not the only player looking to make his mark and take on this essential role for Brazil. Many others, including Lucas of Liverpool, Hernanes of Sao Paulo, and even players that don’t fill this function for their clubs, have come in and performed for Brazil, such as Julio Baptista of Roma, and Anderson of Manchester United.

The essential quality that Brazil lacks when Gilberto Silva is on the field is athleticism. These younger players provide the energy to make up the ground that players like Ronaldinho, Kaka, or Elano leave by not tracking back.

Although it has not been suggested yet, one player who performs this function extremely efficiently is Porto’s Fernando. In Porto’s champions league encounter against Manchester United, he routinely dispossessed some of the best players in the world.

He is a work horse and it is his work that allows Porto to look forward and play attacking soccer. He still lacks the distributive capabilities that Gilberto Silva has, but the reality is that it isn’t the job of this position to be creating opportunities (something which Gilberto Silva lacks the creativity to do anyway).

Brazil has always been able to keep the ball, however the untold story is how, in every successful Brazil team in modern times, Brazil has also won the midfield battle.

Dunga’s selection headaches will continue to worsen as the World Cup approaches. In order to compete against the strength of midfields such as Argentina’s (whose center midfield holding options include the likes of Esteban Cambiasso, Mascherano, and Fernando Gago) or any of the European powers, Dunga must invigorate Brazil’s midfield.