Opinion – Marcelo Damato: Brazil sacrifices or sanctifies its coach every four years

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Troussing the coach when the team loses the Cup is part of the game. It is part of the national culture to beat the failed coach as if he were a false messiah, the traitor of our self-image as a people chosen by the god of football.

We chose the national team coach as a prophet. We expect him to be our messiah, a modern Jesus.

If you win the Cup, the coach is sanctified. Even if most Brazilians don’t like Felipão, Parreira and Zagallo, we have to swallow them and, more than that, worship them for all eternity, because they brought home the sacred fire of football (going to say Did you not know that inside the cup there is a flame that never goes out?).

If it loses, the trainer is crucified. We, the chosen people of football, refuse forgiveness to anyone who made us dream that we would receive the cup, which means God’s blessing, and then did not fulfill that hope.

So we sent him to the cross. We tolerate the CBF president’s Barrabás, but not the coach.
When the coach is immolated, it’s worth saying any nonsense to condemn the one who dared to deny us the award that is Brazilian by divine right.

It wasn’t enough for Tite to mount one of the greatest defenses of all time for the national team, to have kept the national team without internal crises for six years, to have tried to face his own convictions. It was not enough to have been reappointed with almost unanimous support.

If he lost, even more so with this team, if he gave us concrete hope, he needs to be sacrificed.
And in the narrative to immolate or flatter the false prophet, history is rewritten backwards, game after game.

When Brazil tied the first half with Croatia, the atmosphere was one of apprehension, little criticism. After Richarlison’s two goals, it was decreed: Brazil played a great game from beginning to end.

After the slender victory over Switzerland, the shortcomings are ignored.

But when an all-reserve team lost to Cameroon by a goal in late stoppage time, commentators said Brazil were adrift and hadn’t played a good game so far.
After the thrashing over South Korea, the mood reversed. Tiago Leifert decreed that Brazil had only played good games, even in the defeat against Cameroon.

Then came Croatia. After controlling the game, finishing 22 times on goal, Brazil allowed a shot, took the tie and went down on penalties. Immediately, everything that was good about the team’s work, and Tite’s in particular, was erased in a way that even Stalin, the Soviet dictator, could not do. All that was missing was the official photo of the selection in the 2022 campaign with an empty space in the coach’s place.

If you still have doubts, compare the games that went to penalties. Argentina suffered a draw in the last bid of the game. He won on penalties, which are not a lottery, but have nothing to do with the game. As Argentina won, all their qualities about the game were enhanced.

And the same happened with Morocco and a little with Croatia (not much, so that their merits do not soften the situation in Brazil).

Immolating the defeated technician seems to be a national diversion, as has been done with witches and quack doctors.

Only that doesn’t help anything to get the World Cup back.

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