Brazil national team opens the door to the foreign coach

After six years in office, coach Tite left the "Seleção" team last month, after exiting the Qatar 2022 World Cup quarter-finals against Croatia on penalties.

Despite knowing months before the World Cup of Tite's departure, Brazilian Football Confederation President Ednaldo Rodriguez has yet to find a replacement coach.

He is now expanding his circle of options.

On January 17, he said, "We do not have a prior opinion regarding any nationality."

He continued, "We want a respectable coach who imposes a decent level on the players. We want to do what Brazil always tries to do: be very offensive."

Apart from England, which contracted with the Swedish Sven Goran Eriksen and the Italian Fabio Capello in the first decade of the third millennium, none of the great teams signed a foreign coach for decades.

And the title drought that has haunted Brazil since 2002, when it was led by the striking attacking trio Ronaldo-Rivaldo-Ronaldinho, may force the South American country crowned with five world titles (a record) to search for "distant" options.

There are Brazilian candidates, but none of them have garnered local support.

"We have good quality, but in the past we used to produce more coaches," said coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led the yellow team to its last title in South Korea and Japan.

The Brazilian media suggested a number of potential candidates, including the Spaniards Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, the Italian Carlo Ancelotti, the French Zinedine Zidane, the Portuguese Jose Mourinho or even the Argentines Marcelo Gallardo and Mauricio Pochettino.

Guardiola, the English coach of Manchester City, and Ancelotti, the Spanish coach of Real Madrid, excluded themselves from the race, despite the first saying years ago that he would welcome the training of a national team after the end of his career with the English champion.

In turn, the president of the Brazilian Federation, who hopes to appoint a coach before March, said, "Since the end of last year, I think I have heard 26 names. We will pursue some of them."

However, it is not easy to contract with a world-class coach in light of the terrible ability of European clubs to pay exorbitant salaries and compete for the Champions League and local titles.

Nor is it easy to convince the Brazilian fans to sign a "gringo" (a foreigner) at the helm of the national team.

A poll in December showed that 48% were against the idea, with 41% in favor.

But the rejection rate was lower than in previous polls.

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