It could get nasty! Brazil boss Luiz Felipe Scolari has had his fill of Mr Nice Guy

  • Fortaleza set to witness the return of 'Felipao' when Brazil take on Colombia on Friday
  • Brazil manager claimed he could 'not stand all this politeness any more' following penalty shoot-otu victory over Chile in last 16
  • Luiz Felipe Scolari determined for Brazil to go back to his style and play more aggressively for the rest of the World Cup

By Martin Samuel - Sport

Published: 16:30 EST, 1 July 2014 | Updated: 04:31 EST, 2 July 2014

Fortaleza on Friday will see the return of one of the most colourful and controversial characters in modern football. Felipao. Big Phil. He will be standing in for the coach of Brazil, Luis Felipe Scolari. The fact the two men are one and the same makes it all the more interesting.

Scolari spoke in the aftermath of Brazil’s penalty shoot-out win over Chile, but it was Big Phil reporting for duty. ‘I can’t stand all this politeness any more,’ he said.

‘We’re being too nice, too cordial with our opponents. We can’t be laid back every day. It’s time for a change - I can’t hold it in any more. It’s time we defended a little differently, to go back to my style, which is more aggressive.’

Wild emotion: Brazil's players celebrate their dramatic 3-2 penalty shootout against Chile in the last 16

Wild emotion: Brazil's players celebrate their dramatic 3-2 penalty shootout against Chile in the last 16

No more Mr Nice Guy: Luiz Felipe Scolari is determined for Brazil to start playing more aggressively

No more Mr Nice Guy: Luiz Felipe Scolari is determined for Brazil to start playing more aggressively

Emotional: Scolari embraces star man Neymar following Brazil's penalty shoot-out victory over Chile
Emotional: Scolari embraces star man Neymar following Brazil's penalty shoot-out victory over Chile

Emotional: Scolari embraces star man Neymar following Brazil's penalty shoot-out victory over Chile

VIDEO Neymar fit for Brazil

 
   

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That is putting it mildly. In his playing days, the cry of ‘here comes the truck’ would accompany centre-half Scolari in the tackle. He was what the Brazilians call a perna-de pau. It translates as wooden leg.

His early management style was little different. A pitch-side microphone once caught him telling an official in a Copa Libertadores match, ‘I’ll wait for you outside, mate’. He went a step further with one of his coaching adversaries, Vanderlei Luxemburgo - revered at the time as a professorial Arsene Wenger type who took a laptop computer into the dug-out the better to analyse the performances of his players. Felipao pushed him to the ground as he attempted to protest a sending-off. ‘I didn’t want my players to lose their advantage,’ he explained, matter-of-factly.

If Luxemburgo’s image was that of the intellectual, Felipao was, by contrast, the gaucho, the cowboy, the man’s man. He comes from Rio Grande do Sul, where the culture owes much to that of Brazil’s most hated neighbours. They ride horses and see themselves as different from the rest of the country. The feeling is mutual. When Scolari was referred to as The Argentine, during his days with Gremio and Palmeiras, it was not intended as a compliment.

This was when Felipao was at his confrontational peak. Those who have followed his career will have heard the no more Mr Nice Guy speech before. It was Felipao who caused consternation as a club manager in Brazilian football by admitting he had told his players to commit more fouls. ‘Everyone does it, I’m just the only one who admits it,’ he insisted, as the storm raged.

Perhaps this is true. Not everyone throws extra balls on to the pitch to waste time, though, and Felipao did that also, in a big cup game to wind down the clock. When he got the Brazil job the first time in 2001, it was only as a last resort when it became apparent the country might not qualify for the World Cup in 2002. He had been the outstanding candidate for several years previously, yet was overlooked. Then, a year later, playing an attractive style of football many thought was beyond him, Felipao won the World Cup.

At which point, he faded from view, to be replaced by the gentler, calmer, much respected Luis Felipe Scolari. Two things had changed. With the greatest win of his career, Scolari had entered the ranks of football’s elder statesmen. A World Cup winner could not go around manhandling other managers or causing chaos on the touchline. Also, he landed the Portugal job. He earned as a European coach earns, he moved in high circles.

Felipao still visited occasionally, such as when he threw a punch at Serbia’s Ivica Dragutinovic in 2007, but those who knew both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde said the transformation was close to complete.

By the time Scolari came to Chelsea in 2008, those expecting a pugilistic Jose Mourinho were almost disappointed by the courteous, genial figure in their midst. There was no sign of Felipao at all.

Indeed, Chelsea’s players sent a deputation to Scolari asking for the tempo of training to be turned up to the levels that had brought success in the Mourinho era. Still they coasted. Scolari was sacked in February 2009 during his first season, with Chelsea already in fourth place and seven points behind leaders Manchester United, who had a game in hand.

Hopes of a nation: Fans celebrate in the city of Sao Paolo after Brazil secured their passage to the next round

Hopes of a nation: Fans celebrate in the city of Sao Paolo after Brazil secured their passage to the next round

Focused: Scolari will be desperate to guide hosts Brazil to the nation's sixth World Cup victory

Focused: Scolari will be desperate to guide hosts Brazil to the nation's sixth World Cup victory

All smiles: Brazil stars Neymar and Marcelo (left) ride on bikes during Tuesday's training session in Teresopolis

All smiles: Brazil stars Neymar and Marcelo (left) ride on bikes during Tuesday's training session in Teresopolis

Courteous figure: There was no sign of Felipao when Scolari arrived in London to manage Chelsea in 2008

Courteous figure: There was no sign of Felipao when Scolari arrived in London to manage Chelsea in 2008

 
 

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Back in Brazil and again with the selecao, Scolari is perceived to be on familiar, stronger ground. His management of what is widely considered a less than vintage Brazil has been widely lauded, not least in getting the best out of Neymar. This is widely agreed to be one of the first Brazilian teams that is stronger as a defensive unit, yet Scolari still has them on the front foot, even if the group appears as reliant on Neymar, as Argentina are on Lionel Messi or Portugal on Cristiano Ronaldo. 

What is plain, though, is that Brazil are as equipped to play an ugly game as o jogo bonito. Scolari’s players are regularly among the dirtiest in the Champions League, judged on fouls committed. Ramires and Fernandinho (third and 11th last season), Dani Alves and Hulk (sixth and 16th the season before) and Luiz Gustavo and David Luiz (first and 14th in 2011-12) have all featured in the bad boy league table in recent campaigns.

And already there are hints that attitudes are changing as the big quarter-final approaches. Asked about Colombia’s James Rodriguez, the top scorer of the tournament, Fernandinho did not cite Neymar and fighting creative fire with fire. ‘The less space he gets, the better,’ he said, darkly. 

What remains to be seen is how much desire Scolari genuinely has to channel his inner Felipao, and destroy all that splendid goodwill. Is it just talk, or will he unleash his unruly alter ego once more? Friends say he will certainly not wish to endure a repeat of the penalty shoot-out with Chile. Colombia should prepare for less cordiality on Friday. They should prepare to be reacquainted with the phenomenon that is Big Phil. And maybe bring a mouth-guard.

VIDEO Brazil breathe a sigh of relief

Split personality: Will Scolari unleash his alter ego when Brazil take on Colombia in Friday's quarter-final?

Split personality: Will Scolari unleash his alter ego when Brazil take on Colombia in Friday's quarter-final?

 

OTHER SIDE OF NEYMAR

This is the story of another Neymar. A Neymar you won’t be seeing on your television screens any time soon, or in the FIFA approved pictures beamed back from Brazil. Neymar is eight, has taken the nickname of his famous footballer hero, and sells cheap sweets on the Avenida Beira Mar in Fortaleza, outside the hotel where the teams stay.

A reporter from O Globo newspaper, Ruben Berta, sought his story after seeing him roughly handled by security guards for entering a nearby restaurant with his sad little bag of goods.

He does this to help his mother and his 11-year-old sister keep the one room they all share on the outskirts of town.

The light has recently been cut off, the rent is expensive, and they fear they will soon have to return to the streets.

That will be the end of Neymar’s schooling, too, such as it is.

The reporter asked Neymar what he wanted to be when he grew up. ‘Moco quando eu crescer eu quero ser turista,’ he said. ‘When I grow up, I want to be a tourist.’

So, never forget, this is a wonderful World Cup, for the football. But let’s keep it real.

Hero to thousands: One young Brazil fan, named after Neymar, is selling sweets to help his family

Hero to thousands: One young Brazil fan, named after Neymar, is selling sweets to help his family

 

Barcelona up to their old tricks

Lovely old Barcelona waited less than 24 hours from the moment of Luis Suarez’s apology to the opening of negotiations for his transfer. Andoni Zubizarreta, the sporting director, said: ‘Suarez had the honour to come out and apologise. Now it’s time to begin the recovery process.’

‘Recovery process’ in Catalan obviously meaning ‘opportunistically low initial bid followed by a summer of unseemly haggling’.

The one group who deserve no sympathy at all in the fall-out from the Luis Suarez biting affair are adidas. They have taken down the posters across Brazil that showed the player, teeth bared like an animal, because the image had become a bizarre tourist attraction. Queues were forming of fans being pictured, arm out or head forward, as if in the lion’s mouth. Adidas no doubt thought this was damaging to their corporate brand. They haven’t cancelled Suarez’s contract, but have expressed concern, and announced a review of all related marketing.

Yet whose fault is it if adidas look foolish? Who played with a concept referencing the most unsavoury side of Suarez’s character, rather than his sublime gifts as a footballer?

Suarez was a reformed man, coming into this World Cup, we believed. Yet in desperation to be cutting edge, adidas nodded to his darkness, with the slogan ‘tudo ou nada’ - all or nothing - as if those bites were nothing more than the product of a desperate desire to win. It would appear they bit off more than they could chew, ho ho, and the shame is as much theirs,  as his.

 

 

Dave Reddin will be helping the British Olympic Association look at what went wrong for England’s footballers in Brazil, with a view to avoiding a repeat of any mistakes at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Reddin is head of performance services at the FA. Just about everything that is wrong with the English game is right there in that job title. It is a position from an episode of The Office, not a body that produces winning football teams.

 

And while we're at it

Arjen Robben was public enemy number one at the World Cup on Monday, accused, yet again, of diving. So what did the Dutch federation do? They put him in front of the media to give his side of the story, like a grown-up.

Had that been Wayne Rooney facing a similar crisis, we would have been offered Phil Jagielka and Frank Lampard - and at the first mention of cheating, a hyper-ventilating Football Association apparatchik would have blocked all questions on  the subject. 

So is it any surprise that Dutch footballers accept responsibility during matches, while England’s retreat trembling into a shell?

Public enemy: Arjen Robben goes down in the area under the challenge of Mexico captain Rafael Marquez

Public enemy: Arjen Robben goes down in the area under the challenge of Mexico captain Rafael Marquez

 

Put the poncho away and keep on rattling

Pogba rumours

There are some very  disturbing rumours going around about why Paul Pogba left  Manchester United.

If they are true, it is fair to presume he will not be moving to Chelsea either, no matter how high the bid.

Watching the match with Holland in the hotel bar, a large group of Mexicans. There were several guys sitting up at the counter directly beneath the television screen, another party around two tables.

One of the guys on the stools was draped in a flag, and had a rattle, which he would twirl furiously whenever goalkeeper Guillermo ‘The Wall’ Ochoa made another fabulous save.

With about 10 minutes remaining, Holland were still going nowhere. Senor Rattle called over one of the guys from the table. They had an animated conversation in Spanish, the details of which soon became plain. ‘We’ve got this in the bag, hombre. It’s time to break out the celebration ponchos.’

Our man then disappeared, returning, five minutes later, with six of the biggest straw sombreros this side of the Rio Grande, and ponchos to match. He arrived with a cry of ‘ole’ in time to see Wesley Sneijder nail Holland’s equaliser.

We know what happened next. At the final whistle the sombreros and ponchos balanced forlornly, unworn, the rattle lay silenced. It was a  pitiful scene. Does anyone know the Mexican for mockers?

Heartbreak: Mexico players look distraught after losing against Holland in the last-16 of the World Cup

Heartbreak: Mexico players look distraught after losing against Holland in the last-16 of the World Cup

 

Say tricolour and Europeans think flags. Brazilians think football clubs. It is a local style, the triple-striped shirt, so brilliant and distinctive.

Fluminese are maroon, green and white, Gremio, pale blue, white and black, Sao Paulo away, red, black and white. In the division below, Sampaio Correa are yellow, green and red, while Santa Cruz have taken the tricolour concept and turned it horizontal with red, black and white hoops.

All distinctive, all special. Those destroying the personality of grand clubs like Southampton and West Bromwich Albion, please note.

 

Gary Medel was quite magnificent for Chile at this World Cup. If he is still with Cardiff City in the Championship when the season begins it will be Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s best deal of the summer. But don’t bet on it.

Top performer: Cardiff midfielder Gary Medel (right) was magnificent for Chile at this summer's World Cup

Top performer: Cardiff midfielder Gary Medel (right) was magnificent for Chile at this summer's World Cup

 

The poorest team at the World Cup were Cameroon. Their zero points total with a goal difference of minus eight from three matches puts them bottom of the table.

The players took to fighting among themselves and there is now a match-fixing investigation, with as many as seven players implicated.

Their manager is Volker Finke, a German. Given that African countries have, in the past, utilised foreign coaches in the belief that they instil more professional values, might it now be presumed that, somewhere, there is a local who could meet this not particularly exacting standard? Maybe even a black guy, who knows?

VIDEO Felipao tackles Dani Alves

 

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Brazil games look rigged

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A couple of days off without any football. What can we write about? Of course,let's have yet another paranoid dig at Luis Suarez. They didn't give me writer of the year for nothing!!

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This is a manager who failed miserably at Chelsea no matter which scolari this deluded writer is talking about

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What a average brazilan team certainly playing like it

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Hopefully Brazil and Holland go out. The diving of Robben and Neymar is disgusting.

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The truth is , Brazil are playing scare, every single player except Neymar afraid to take any chances. Is the coach job to encourage them to show their potentials, but I wouldn't tell David Luiz to get carried away, he might lost the ball in their eighteen yard area, Lol.

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First step is to send Fred as far away from the team as is humanly possibly. Make sure that Jo is one step behind him. They are awful. Play Hulk through the middle and Willian on the left. Drop Oscar for Bernard. Don't worry about Colombia, you will beat them.

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hhaha yes yes...

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Don't underestimate Colombia...

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Why has He ( Scolari ) not been Yellow Carded yet for constantly trying to get players Booked. It is bad enough to have opposing players Like Neymar diving & feigning injury without having the coach waving his hand about...

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Its amazing Brazil cant find any striker better than Fred and Jo who are useless. They should play Hulk as the striker and Willian on the wing. Gustavo is suspended so Rimires and Fernandinho are likely to start. Brazil can win the World cup if they get back to the form they showed in the Confederations cup.

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luis fabiano, alan kardec, robinho

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It wont make a difference, Brazil will get found out as soon as they come up against a class side who can defend. Most of the sides left in have had some fortunate moments, Brazil, Holland, Germany would all be out if it wasn't due to some poor finishing, their defending has been awful at times and David Luiz is in no way a world class centre back. France have been the only team showing solid defensive performances and trophies are won with the goals you do not concede, not the goals you score.

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clueless

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"trophies are won with the goals you do not concede, not the goals you score" Timeless classic, you just made me lost 32 megabytes of brain cells laughing out loud.

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