How listless Brazil’s identity crisis gets deeper after elimination from Copa America as Joga Bonito takes a backseat

The last shreds of the Brazil of old was extinguished as the 5-time World Champions were dumped out of the Copa America by Uruguay on penalties after a dire display of tournament football, something that has been the case for most of this summer with both the Copa and the Euros struggling to produce spellbinding contests.

After a 0-0 tie in regulation time the Selecao, bereft of the attacking talents of Vinicius Junior and Neymar, only had 3 shots on target in a match that consisted of 41 fouls shared between the two sides. This is a far cry from what we expect from a team like Brazil who in years gone by have always looked pleasing to the eye, even in defeat. On the night against Marcelo Bielsa’s Uruguay, they looked abysmal, trying to and failing to produce the magic with which their previous generation had enthralled fans with.

The creative malaise in the team was laid bare after the match when it was revealed that Endrick, the latest Brazil wonderkid to have signed for Spanish giants Real Madrid, had completed just one successful pass in the full 90 minutes, according to Opta. The only pass that he made which was not intercepted by the opponents was at the kick off. That’s a damning stat for a player who was hyped to the moon when he scored in successive matches against England and Spain back in March, all before turning 18, something that only the legendary Pele had done before him.

Endrick played the full 90 minutes and completed one pass. Can you guess which one it was?#URUBRA #CopaAmerica pic.twitter.com/DHndKjPcCc

— Opta Analyst US (@OptaAnalystUS) July 7, 2024

Brazil’s lack of identity has been a problem for a long time. With most of their players playing in top European clubs where the gameplay is more tactical, the natural flair that made the Latin American players into bonafide superstars has somewhat faded.

Even Argentina’s coach Lionel Scaloni had pointed out in January that the game is becoming too robotic for his taste. “There are no dribblers because as soon as they receive the ball you say ‘Pass it!’. Imagine if Messi when he was eight years old had been told all the time ‘Pass it!’ by his coaches, we wouldn’t have him today. You tell a child of 7 or 8 years old to make the diagonal, to cover…. He’s seven years old! Let him play ball, let him make mistakes, and when he’s 14 or 15 we’ll start correcting him. It’s a message for the future. This is a sport and the beauty of football should not be lost,” he had said to Marca.

This is exactly where Brazil find themselves now, without a proper style of play and a team which severely lacks creativity due to the evolution of modern football, so entrenched in tactical aspects of the game that the individual brilliance of players are somewhere lost in translation.

Dorival fora da roda dos jogadores, levantando o dedo para ser ouvido, sem sucesso. Corta pro Bielsa com as planilhas na mão, dando orientações energéticas para os jogadores uruguaios. Que sequência 😳 #CopaAmerica2024 https://t.co/QKAGOOdhLQ pic.twitter.com/cAMAtBU4jc

— Jeff Nascimento (@jnascim) July 7, 2024

To pile on the worries, the national coaching position has resembled a game of musical chairs with Brazil employing three managers since their exit from the 2022 World Cup. Ramon Menezes and Fernando Diniz were both given the job as interim boss before the board settled on Dorival Junior, the former Sao Paulo coach who recently won the 2023 Brazilian Cup.

That the team and their coach aren’t on the same wavelength couldn’t have been more apparent than when a video circulated on social media of Dorival trying to get a look in and a word in from outside the Brazilian players’ huddle, without much success just before the penalty shootout against Uruguay on Sunday. Even if you don’t want to read too much into it, it does paint a picture of a disjointed side with a palpable sense of rift between the coach and the players.

Dorival might not be the man to lead Brazil forward in the coming days as the Selecao look forward to the 2026 World Cup qualifiers but the management might look to appoint someone who can bring out the Joga Bonito (The Beautiful Game) from the undoubtedly talented side, before it becomes a style lost to the ravages of time.

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