SAO PAULO — The Brazilian football confederation will summon former national team coaches to help find ways of improving football in the country after a series of disappointing results.
The confederation’s announcement that it will form a counsel of former coaches comes less than a week after Brazil was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Copa America for the second consecutive time. It’s also less than a year since Brazil’s worst loss ever, a 7-1 defeat to Germany in the semifinals of the World Cup on home soil.
Former goalkeeper Gilmar Rinaldi, the confederation official who oversees the national team, said Wednesday in an interview with SporTV that foreign coaches, club coaches, former world champions and media representatives will also be called up to join the discussion.
"We will institute the counsel of strategic development for Brazilian football," Rinaldi said. "We want an X-ray of what can be done. We want to open the confederation to knowledge from outside. It will be the future of the national team and of our football."
The decision to seek help was made after a meeting in Rio de Janeiro involving national team coach Dunga and confederation president Marco Polo del Nero.
"The goal is to have a diagnosis of Brazilian football through different perspectives so we can create and implement a strategic plan of action," Rinaldi said, adding that the confederation will also summon different health and technology professionals.
Former Brazil coaches expected to be called up include Luiz Felipe Scolari, Mano Menezes, Carlos Alberto Parreira, Mario Zagallo, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Paulo Roberto Falcao, among others.
The first meeting could happen as early as next week.
Brazil hasn’t won the World Cup since 2002, when it had a team coached by Scolari and led by Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Cafu and Roberto Carlos.
This month’s Copa America gave Brazil its first chance to get over the humiliating World Cup elimination, but it lost to Paraguay on penalties for the second straight time. Now its next chance at redemption will come in South American qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, which starts in October. Brazil is the only nation to never miss out on a World Cup.
Brazil has a generation with few top stars and is heavily dependent on Barcelona’s Neymar, who played only two Copa America matches before being suspended for the rest of the tournament because of a confrontation with Colombian players in the group stage.
The Brazilian confederation has been under scrutiny since former president Jose Maria Marin was among the officials recently arrested in Switzerland after corruption investigations by U.S. authorities. There have been widespread calls for the current president to resign, and a congressional probe into the administration of local football is scheduled to start soon.