Big Phil speaks up for coaches

"Big Phil" is tired of hearing that Brazil won the World Cup simply because of the individual talents of their players.

Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led Brazil from the doldrums to June's World Cup victory in only 14 months, believes that Brazilian coaches do not get the recognition they deserve and says they are as good as their counterparts anywhere else in the world.

"Europe thinks that it's the players who win in Brazil and the coach takes no part at all. They think the technical quality of the Brazilian players makes the difference," said Scolari in an interview.

"But, today, technically gifted players exist everywhere.

"If we hadn't had organisation and quality coaches, coaches who study the opponents in their every detail, Brazil would not have won.

"That's what happened. Brazil played good matches, we had an excellent time at the World Cup after that negative period before. But why? Because we did a lot of work.

"All the little details were passed on to the athletes. The physical side, the medical side, the technical side, the individual part. This is something that Brazilian coaches don't give themselves much credit for. It is not recognised."

BLACK BEANS

Scolari, who quit his job with Brazil last month, is hoping to follow-up his world title by being given the chance to coach a club in Europe. But there are some barriers to break down first.

So far, only a handful of Brazilian coaches have made it to the major leagues of Europe and none has enjoyed the success of Argentina's Hector Cuper, who led Valencia to successive Champions League finals and is now at Inter Milan.

Scolari admits that Brazilian coaches have an image problem which he says is partly their own fault and partly that of the Brazilian players in Europe.

"None of the Brazilian coaches do any marketing," he said. "And it's easier for Argentines because they speak Spanish. Also, it's rare for an Argentine player to want to go back to his country. Most of their athletes stay in Europe -- but not ours. Ours go to Europe and want to come back in their second year because there are no black beans, because there's no samba, and so on.

"We commit some mistakes which makes the Europeans look to sign from other countries and not ours."

Scolari is determined to change that and prove that Europeans can learn from Brazilian coaching methods.

In particular, he would like to take his own staff so that his future club can benefit from Brazilian physical preparation, which he describes as unequalled.

SIX COMPETITIONS

"The Brazilian preparers are the best in the world. In Europe, they do the pre-season in June and that's it, it lasts until June next year.

"Brazil has six, seven, eight competitions a year. You can't just do one pre-season training a year, you have to do two or three pre-seasons.

"You have to have well-defined cycles of work. From January to March you have one type of competition, from February to April another, from June to December another.

He points out, for example, that before Brazil's players began training for the World Cup, they were subjected to a battery of tests to evaluate the state of their physical fitness.

"The decision to only start training with a complete knowledge of the state of the athletes, only after all the tests had been completed, was crucial," said Scolari.

He admits that his methods could come as a shock to European players. Although Brazil may be seen as a laid-back, carnival-loving nation, its footballers are often obliged to train twice a day and spent much longer holed up in pre-match "concentration" than their European counterparts.

"I know that the first three months will be difficult for me," said Scolari.

"I will have to adapt and I will have to make the players adapt to new situations. But the important thing is to show them why you are changing things.

"If the players have to change training in the morning for training in the afternoon or train twice a day, they will want to know why. But if you show them the benefits, they do it."

BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scolari promised any potential employers that they could expect results and trophies but said they would not necessarily see the exuberant attacking football for which Brazil are famous.

Scolari, accused in the past of making his teams over-physical, admits he has never been an exponent of the so-called Beautiful Game and said Brazil's attacking football at the World Cup in Japan and South Korea was the result of pragmatism rather than a change in philosophy on his part.

"Nothing changed --- not my way of thinking nor my way of acting," he said.

"The players knew that in the first three games we would try and win well, to try and bring back our prestige and make the opponents fear us again. Because, after the way we qualified for the World Cup, nobody feared us.

"I play according to the target. If I have to win 1-0 to win the title, I will try and win 1-0.There's no point in playing attractive football if that attractive football does not bring Brazil what it wants, which in this case was the Penta (fifth world title)."

In typically blunt fashion, he added: "Football is no longer romantic. Football is the company, it's professional. Back in the 1940s, 1950s it was amateurism dressed up as professionalism. Today it's professional. If you're not professional, you don't win, you don't see players, your club goes broke and closes down."