With their 1-2 loss against Norway in their round of 16 encounter at New Jersey on Sunday, five-time champions Brazil bowed out of the tournament. The round of 16 loss meant that it was the country’s earliest World Cup exit since the round of 16 knockout loss in the 1990 World Cup. The loss also meant that Brazil has failed to win the World Cup in the last five editions of the tournament since the Cafu led Brazilian side won the World Cup in 2002. Former Sweden striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic believes that the Brazil team is haunted by their history and the players are under pressure to win at least the World Cup.
“Brazil is haunted by history for what they have done. Because every Brazilian team today, the individual players, are haunted by the history, and the history, unfortunately, is very strong . There are players that have been the best players in the world and are the best players in history also. So the results they have to bring is to win at least the World Cup. And I said it before, Norway, they don’t have this respect for Brazil. They will not go out there and respect them and let them play. They’re going to do their game. And we said it from the beginning. This is not the Brazil we are used to seeing. This is a different Brazil, and I don’t know if we talked about them being favourites to win the World Cup. I don’t believe we did that,” Ibrahimovic told Fox Sports.
During the last World Cup, Brazil had arrived at the tournament being the top ranked team in the world. Prior to this year’s World Cup, Brazil was ranked sixth in the world rankings with this being their lowest-ranking prior to a World Cup since FIFA introduced rankings in 1992. During their World Cup campaign, Brazil finished fifth in the South American qualifiers and lost six matches including losses against Columbia, Paraguay and Bolivia. Italian Carlo Ancelotti took over the coach’s role last year after Dorival Junior was sacked after the country’s defeat against Argentina in the World Cup qualifiers last year. Ancelotti, who is the most successful manager in Champions League history with five titles apart from being the only manager to win league titles in five leagues in Europe, oversaw Brazil’s campaign in qualifying as well this World Cup. His contract was extended this May. Brazil had started their World Cup campaign with a 1-1 draw against Morocco before a 3-0 win over Haiti and an identical win over Scotland to top the Group C. The Marquinhos led team scored a 2-1 win over Japan in the round of 32 in a tense encounter. xxx shared how most of the football pundits had talked about Ancelotti and not the Brazilian team prior to this World Cup.
“We talked more about Carlo Ancelotti being a super manager, with a winning CV. The best CV that he has been winning everywhere he went, and that is what we have been talking about. But the team is not the same team as we are used to. So this is not a surprise for me, because this is the first game. I don’t think they convinced a lot of people that they would go all the way,” Ibrahimovic said.