Brazilian Players Based in Europe: Who Benefits?

Every year approximately 1000 (official) new Brazilian signings are exported overseas. A staggering number when one considers that this is an annual figure which has steadily increased over the years.

The debate, as far as Brazilians in Europe are concerned, goes like this:

The Euro hardliners will say, Brazilians are desperate to play for our "big clubs" and everything they learn is in Europe.

The hard-line Brazilian fan will say Brazilians go to Europe to make easy money in their weaker leagues, and without our players their clubs would be worthless.

In this article I will attempt to expand on these two schools of thought and perhaps the reader can come to a conclusion—unless you have already come to the table with your mind made up, irrespective of this article.

You just have to glance at the picture above to see that it pretty much is a fact that Brazilians do win titles in Europe. Since 1999 there has not been a single CL final decided without a Brazilian presence. Club national titles are no different throughout Europe.

Some will say that these Brazilian players learn their football in Europe because of facilities and training. This idea begs the question—why pay millions for a player and then spend more money training him? Why not train your own?

Then there is the glory. Brazilians dream of playing for a "big club" in Europe and this is the reason so many come. However when interviews with Kaka, Ronaldo or any of the other stars are done they always speak of their clubs back in Brazil as "their club".

When they are back in Brazil the first thing they do is put on their club jersey and go watch a match with "their club" playing. The reality is that Brazilians will play for any club in Europe as long as they pay well. Case in point is Robinho's recent transfer to Manchester City —hardly a dream club that.

A dream transfer fee more like it.

There is also the question of the national side. The point is that if Brazilian football is so good, then why play with an almost all Europe based squad? The reality is that these players were good before they went to Europe, and most are called to national duty before Europe as well.

There are very few examples of players who went to Europe at an extremely young age and then made the squad e.g. Alexandre Pato. These are few and far between and there has never been a big name.

Rivaldo played for Brazil for three years before going to Europe and wowing everyone. Ronaldo played at the tender age of 17 for his national side while still at Cruzeiro, winning his first World Cup medal before going off to Europe where he was dubbed the phenomenon.

These two examples should do, but the list is endless.

Another interesting point about the national side is that in spite of the thousands of players to pick from in Europe, Brazil still manages to have some local based players every time. We must bare in mind that for every local player picked there are about 30 options for the position who play in Europe. This shows that the talent pool in Brazil is endless and the training facilities and coaching are second to none.

A hard-line Brazilian might even say that it is quite the opposite. Brazilian players make the national side in spite of the fact they play in Europe. After the 2006 World Cup fiasco there was widespread outcry for the removal of all foreign based players. Until today Dunga has played a mixed team very often without Kaka or Ronaldinho or both.

Thankfully for football, the boycott idea never caught on fully. 

In an interview given a few days ago Kaka said that one of the things he learnt in Europe was to shoot from outside due to the more compact defences. He was responding to comments about his World Cup qualifier goal against Venezuela. He went on to say that Robinho would have picked this up too as he too scored a screamer from outside the box against the Venezuelans.

So Brazilians do learn new things in Europe, but to say that they are trained there is, in my opinion, an overstatement. There are some players who are faithful to one club e.g. Kaka, but to say that Brazilians dream of playing in a European team is down right ridiculous, in a country which gives little thought to foreign football.

Having played in Europe Brazilians may get a better feel against European opposition, but to say that players are picked only because they play in Europe is just plain untrue.

We must all remember that there were great Brazilians—the likes of Pele and Garrincha—who never played in Europe, and that Brazil won three World Cups without a single foreign based player.