da dobrowin： The Selecao may have endured Copa America disappointment, but it never seemed set to be a successful campaign

da casino： Ronaldinho said it. Brazil aren't very good. Not only are they not very good, they're also not particularly watchable. This great footballing nation, five-time World Cup champions, all of which had been won playing the kind of football that was the envy of the rest of the sport, had lost its way.

Samba, Chinga, Joga Bonito – it has many names. It's a lost art.

"It's getting hard to find the spirit to watch the games," the Brazil legend said on Instagram. "This is perhaps one of the worst teams in recent years, it has no respectable leaders, only average players for the majority."

That was on June 15, and even though the sincerity of his claims have since been questioned, the point remained: this is not the Brazil that the greats knew. And they were ultimately proved right. The Selecao stumbled through Copa America, winning just one of their four games, and failing to score in two of them.

Perhaps even worse, this was, as Ronaldinho had predicted, a remarkably unwatchable team. For all of the talent – and there was certainly a lot in the squad – Brazil were a largely static entity, playing languid football, with no signature samba confidence to be found. Still, dramatic failure notwithstanding, the tournament itself was something of a wash for the Selecao. Nothing was guaranteed here, nor was it expected.

Without Neymar, and led by a manager who had just two international coaching games on his resume when the tournament kicked off, this was never going to be a success.

There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned, but a tournament victory was never realistic. It is now time for a reset ahead of what will be a far more important 2026 World Cup cycle.

Getty ImagesExpectations before the tournament

Ronaldinho wasn't the only pessimist in South America. With a crippled squad that lacked established stars such as Neymar, Casemiro and Thiago Silva, expectations perhaps were refreshingly low in the great footballing nation. New manager Dorival Jr had been bold in his squad selection, gutting the side of misfiring European stars and entrusting Brazilian top-flight mainstays and promising youngsters with positions in the squad.

In theory, it took the pressure off.

Brazil, after all, were perhaps third or fourth favorites heading into the competition. Argentina, coming off back-to-back major tournament wins were regarded as the clear frontrunners (and really should win their next two fixtures to round off a third straight.)

Meanwhile, improvements for both Colombia and Uruguay made this a hard road to glory for a Brazil squad undergoing immense change. In theory, there was an understanding – but not quite acceptance – that Brazil would be short of their usual class in the 2024 tournament.

AdvertisementGetty ImagesNo Neymar, no fun

Perhaps the biggest issue was the absence of Neymar. The attacking midfielder and star man tore his ACL in an October World Cup qualifying match, and was declared out for a whole year almost immediately. Fans and players alike knew that they would be without their one true difference-maker – and proven star for the national team.

It also, more broadly, tempered expectations as to how this team might look. Neymar had played in some poor Brazil sides over the course of his international career, bridging the gap between the Joga Bonito side of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Robinho and the more workman-like contemporaries of Casemiro, Fabinho and Bruno Guimaraes. In effect, the Al-Hilal man had become the showman in an otherwise atypical Brazil team, the player to watch in an otherwise industrious side.

Without him, the Selecao were never really likely to be fun. Instead, this looked like a drab unit, punctuated by some top European stars who had never made it happen for their national team. Vinicius Jr was perhaps chief culprit, the Ballon d'Or frontrunner with just three goals to his name in canary yellow.

GettyWhere it all went wrong

And so it proved. Everything that could have gone wrong did. The Selecao started the tournament with a 0-0 draw against Costa Rica, managing just three shots on target despite having 74 percent of the possession. They responded strongly by battering Paraguay 4-1. But after that, they faltered, held to a 1-1 draw by Colombia, and eventually deservedly crashed out of the competition on penalties to 10-man Uruguay.

The results were poor, but the manner in which the campaign unfolded was even worse. Ronaldinho's comments before the tournament bred controversy almost immediately, with Raphinha having to defend the side while speaking ill of one of the country's greats. Vinicius failed to exorcise his national team demons in the first game, and after picking up a silly yellow card in the third group game, was forced to watch from the sidelines as his side were knocked out of the competition.

Meanwhile, all of the talk of faith vested in young talent fell flat. Endrick, supposed Pele-regen and future Real Madrid star barely got a kick across the first three games. He was then harshly chucked into a high-octane contest in the quarter-final, and spent 90 minutes being ruthlessly fouled by an unforgiving Uruguay defense. And to cap everything off, they missed two penalties in their final shootout – exiting a second straight tournament on spot-kicks.

This was far from a signature performance.

GettyThe manager and the future?

The role Dorvial had in all of this is largely up for the debate. Certainly, the former Sao Paulo manager picked the team and managed the squad. But he didn't ooze confidence on the sideline, spending most of his time peering from the bench, simply watching as disaster unfolded before him. His changes were too late, and he never quite pieced together a recognizable tactical plan.

Tellingly, he was forced out of the huddle before the penalty shootout, pictured struggling to get a word in as captain Marquinhos seemed to pick the penalty takers. It painted a dour picture for the Brazilian football federation, who hadn't found a reliable replacement for Tite after his resignation in late 2022. They had reportedly assumed, for some time, that Carlo Ancelotti would be their manager for Copa America. But when the great Italian penned a new deal to stay at Madrid, the federation cycled hurriedly hired Dorival – their third manager in just more than a year.

Dorival accepted responsibility for the failure – as any manager really should. But it's hard to fault him much here. He was handed an uncharacteristically poor squad, and not much time to shape it. Sure, Brazil are always supposed to compete at international tournaments, but this was never going to be an easy few weeks. It makes sense, then, that the federation have elected to hold onto the manager until the 2026 World Cup Expectations should have been kept low, and if he is indeed the best manager Brazil has to offer, then he deserves the chance to try to make something work over the next two years.