Dunga Sacked as Brazil Coach with Tite Waiting in the Wings

Well, that’s that then. The inevitable was confirmed on Tuesday, with Dunga being relieved of his duties as coach of the Brazil national football team, as reported by Euan McKirdy at CNN.com.

It marked the Selecao's worst showing at a Copa America competition since 1923, in which they lost all three of their games.

The bare statistics don’t make awful reading for the 1994 World Cup-winning captain, which just goes to show relying on numbers alone only ever tells part of the story. In total, Dunga earned 18 victories from 26 games, including a string of 10 successive wins at the start of his spell, albeit all in friendly matches.

However, his reign included just five victories in competitive games, and the side only managed to find the back of the net in a solitary game at the Copa America Centenario.

To rub a little salt into Dunga’s open wound, his team were the only one to concede against group whipping boys Haiti. Two years on from the World Cup debacle and Brazil are back where they started.

Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Not only for the premature exit itself, but also in terms of inspiration and excitement for the viewing public, this year’s failure must go down as one of the lowest ebbs. Across three games, Brazil only managed to ignite in what was a glorified training exercise against Haiti.

The sheer predictability of Dunga’s setup was hopelessly exposed in the United States, with the former midfield enforcer showing neither inclination nor the knowhow to change the scenario.

Furthermore, his prickly nature and downright baffling decisions succeeded in turning an already unenthusiastic public against him. The coach’s decision to stop calling up Thiago Silva, the finest Brazilian central defender on the planet, spoke volumes of his dictatorial attitude.

It was never likely to be a happy ending, and his acrimonious relationship with the nation’s spiky sporting media only added to the tension.

Christophe Ena/Associated Press

Now, as Brazilian football picks its battered ego off the floor once again, the need for reassessment and redirection is at the forefront of the country’s priorities. The clear favourite to take over, Tite, has been in the running for a number of years, and he was expected in some quarters to take the job following the World Cup in 2014.

Immediately after taking training with Corinthians on Tuesday afternoon, the tactician headed to Rio de Janeiro on the Brazilian Football Confederation’s private jet, as reported by Lance (link in Portuguese).

Time is of the essence; there is work to be done prior to Brazil kicking off their Olympic Games campaign at the beginning of August. There is a disenchantment with the Selecao Brasileira that is in danger of becoming apathy and indifference to their travails on the football pitch.

Tite’s CV is not one to be sniffed at, and his experience in dealing with the demands of “corintianos,” the fanbase for quite possibly the largest club in the country, should stand him in good stead when dealing with the pressures of the national job.

Matilde Campodonico/Associated Press

Brazil’s low ebb has now dragged on over the course of two years with little sign of being arrested. While Tite’s most immediate task will be to steady the ship, he has shown that the turbulence of big-time football is something he has become adept at managing with aplomb.

Brazilian football has had enough crisis points over the last two decades to satisfy most nations. The defeat to Honduras at the 2001 Copa America and the defeat against a Cameroon side reduced to nine men at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games came during a particularly fraught period for the Selecao.

Those defeats were, of course, avenged by the side’s success at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, where coach Luiz Felipe Scolari helped Brazil to their fifth and latest global crown. Can a similar vindication be found in 2018?

The Brazil national football team is the country’s most iconic symbol. In a country of roughly 200 million people, public support can and should be one of the most potent weapons in the armoury. As things stand, that is not the case.

Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press

In theory, looking through cold analytical eyes, Brazil’s group-stage exit from this Copa would rank as one of their worst failures and certainly the most shameful.

Handed as simple a group as just about anyone could have asked for, Brazil then proceeded to fail to find the back of the net against Ecuador and Peru, were far too rigid tactically and failed to inspire just a few months before the Olympics are held on home soil.

Dunga is known as a pragmatic coach. Safety first, secure the result, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with that approach to the game.

But to see his side on two occasions fail to react in situations where their setup clearly was not bearing fruit bordered on criminal. Dunga was back in charge for two years, and the return in that time was frighteningly sparse.

With the two-time Selecao boss now given his marching orders, the side is again shrouded in uncertainty with precious little time before the next challenge appears from over the horizon. Fortunately, the man mooted to take over, Tite, has serious credentials at one of the country’s biggest clubs, Corinthians.

Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press

With the “Paulista” outfit, he has won it all. Two Brazilian league titles, including romping to the finish line in last year’s run-in; a Copa Libertadores crown, the South American answer to the Champions League, in 2012; and even a World Club Cup title, seeing off Chelsea in December of the same year.

His immediate task will be identical to that of Dunga post-World Cup—restoring pride to a wounded beast.

For it is not only the premature elimination from the most recent competition that has helped contribute to the negativity around the national side, but the overall panorama of dire football and struggles in their own back yard of South America.

Now, a new era is set to be ushered in and, it is hoped, the road to recovery can and must begin in earnest. The Selecao have the individuals on the pitch to dig them out of this malaise. Their reaction is critical, and in Tite, a winner is set to be at the helm of the ship.

There will, of course, always be highs and lows, the peaks and ebbs of fiercely competitive sport. The new man will have a two-year run at organising his team ahead of the next World Cup in Russia, assuming they can indeed qualify.

Tite alone cannot solve the crisis. But he has proved that he has the track record to join together the finest players this country has available and restructure the Selecao.

The likes of Thiago Silva, Casemiro, Philippe Coutinho and Neymar are evidence that the makings of a high-quality team are there. Now, it looks like it will depend on the efforts of the man a nation has pined after for two years.