Opinion – Juca Kfouri: Who’s afraid of South Korea?

The question in the title seems arrogant, the aforementioned superiority question. Out of consistency, but above all, evaluation, the answer is: “I’m afraid of South Korea”.

If it were the North, the fear would be double, due to its mischief in the FA Cup, in 1966, when it eliminated Italy, by beating it by 1 to 0, and made the Azzurra land at Fiumicino airport, in Rome, called of mercenary.

The victory was almost repeated in the next game, against Portugal. The communists reached 3-0 in 24 minutes of play, but Eusébio, the European Pelé, scored four goals and the Portuguese ended up winning by 5-3.

Double fear because being commanded by Kim Jong-un must be a dose.

South Korea is less frightening and the Brazilian team’s punching bag, six defeats in seven friendlies, with a single victory by 1-0, in stoppage time, in 1999. The team had Vanderlei Luxemburgo at the helm, Rogério Ceni, Cafu, Juninho Pernambucano, Zé Roberto, Amoroso, Rivaldo, that is, it wasn’t just any catch, but the game was very bad and the goal was an accident.

More or less like Cameroon, in the match that ended the Brazilian invincibility and imposed the challenge of being champion for the first time without being undefeated. Repeat, in the campaign for the fifth championship there were 28 wins and four draws.

Historical references are historical references and nothing but historical references.

Brazil’s first defeat by the African team in World Cups is being treated as a blot on Tite’s resume, an obvious exaggeration resulting precisely from arrogance.

It is still ironic that the team beat the two Europeans it faced and lost to an African, with the mission, now, not to lose to an Asian team in World Cups for the first time, because then it will return home.

But it is good to remember that the four-time champion team in 1994, in the United States, was the one that suffered the first defeat in the qualifiers, to Bolivia, in La Paz, by 2-0, with Taffarel drunk by the effects of altitude already at the end of the game , after even a penalty kick.

Certainly Carlos Alberto Parreira is not in the history of Brazilian football because of this defeat, the first in 40 years and 31 games.

Tite won’t be down either if the sixth comes, but for that, firstly, it’s necessary to beat the South Korean threat, without taking into account the 5-1 rout last June, because that day they were naive enough to want to play as equals — in addition to this Monday’s team (5) being different.

Of all, the most worrying thing, after three games, is that the coach’s dream of going beyond winning the title seems increasingly distant, of also recovering the image of beautiful football in Brazil.

Of the 270 minutes played, only the final 45 against Serbia were convincing and, no matter how much you discount the correct lineup of the reserves against Cameroon, the performance was disappointing, because there weren’t any reserves, almost all of them in their European teams.

Sometimes there is doubt about the extent to which the end of so-called collective training really makes sense, because it does not allow the second team to mesh.

Telê Santana would abhor the novelty, as it was in the collectives that he corrected positions and even taught fundamentals, no matter how much he trained established players.

But that’s another 500.

Watch out for South Korea.