Ancelotti gamble leaves Brazil mired in World Cup quicksand

EAST RUTHERFORD: Brazil spent three years chasing Carlo Ancelotti as if the Italian carried a golden key to their sixth World Cup.

On Sunday, after a 2-1 defeat by Norway in the New Jersey heat, the record five-times champions discovered that even one of club football’s great managers cannot perform miracles with a team built on hope, nostalgia and tired legs.

Italy’s decline has long stood as a warning that if a country fails to look after its football, it can fall behind with alarming speed. Brazil now have their own uncomfortable case study.

The long pursuit of Ancelotti while he was at Real Madrid left the national team drifting under three caretaker managers, and by the time he arrived there was no easy escape from the quicksand. One year was never likely enough time to repair three years of neglect.

Ancelotti may be among the most decorated managers the game has known, but this World Cup showed he is only human.

Several of his biggest squad decisions came back to bite him, and none more painfully than the decision to trust ageing players who looked past their best.

Casemiro, Danilo and Neymar all carried grand names and heavy mileage. Against Norway, that showed.

Both Norwegian goals came down their left flank, where Andreas Schjelderup stepped off the bench with the sort of energy Brazil badly lacked. Danilo, 34, was asked to play at right back, a role he had not occupied regularly for years, having recently been used more as a reserve centre back for Flamengo.

It proved a brutal mismatch. Schjelderup ran at him with purpose; Danilo looked stranded.

Heavy-legged tournament

Casemiro endured a similarly heavy-legged tournament. He struggled with opponents’ pace, misplaced passes and, on Sunday, in the oppressive New Jersey heat, resembled a rusty lorry grinding up a narrow mountain road in the Pyrenees.

Then came Neymar, summoned late with the match goalless and Brazil needing inspiration. He did score a stoppage-time spot-kick, but that was consolation rather than rescue.

The problem was what came before. Neymar, who arrived at the tournament carrying an injury, offered little thrust, little surprise and little of the devastating burst of speed that once made him one of football’s most feared attackers.

Slow, predictable and languid in movement, he cut a sad figure compared with the brilliant player he used to be.

If the plan was really to prepare a new generation for the 2030 World Cup, Brazil’s choices look even harder to explain.

With a full cycle beginning earlier than expected and limited pressure on this squad to conquer the world immediately, Ancelotti could have left the older guard at home and given younger players a bruising but valuable education.

Instead, Brazil tried to straddle the past and future and fell between them.

The result is at least a 28-year wait for a sixth World Cup title, an unthinkable drought for a country that built its footballing identity on invention, daring and superiority.

For much of the tournament, Brazil were almost unrecognisable. Only Vinicius Jr offered flashes of the old sparkle, a reminder that the talent has not vanished entirely.

But around him, Brazil looked short of clarity and speed and, most damningly, short of themselves.