The Answer: Well, they say that being brazil's soccer coach is tougher than being the President, and it's true. It is an ungrateful job! As a player, Dunga was "average", a defensive midfielder who was responsible for destroying plays, rather than creating and scoring. In other words, he played ugly football, very physical.
Because of that background, everybody assumed, when he was appointed as Brazil's coach, that the team would play very defensively, forgetting about "joga bonito" and play only enough to win games. People (Brazilians) want to see the national team play with style, offensively, scoring goals, but Dunga would much rather win by "half" a goal than run the risk of playing too "open" and loose a game. Besides all that, he is very rude to the press.
But one positive thing is that he has been very coherent in the players he has called. There might be discussions about why he didn't take this player or that player, but he has stuck to his choices since the beginning and is respected for that. He dropped Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and other "stars" who do not play with their heart and only think about money and partying. That is another good thing -- he stopped the partying and all the party atmosphere around the team (press, women, parties, managers and agents in the hotel and practices).
To be honest, I am not convinced by the way the team is playing, but I see Brazil as a team, and not a bunch of talented individual players, and that's what you need to win. I haven't been convinced by any team so far, I think this world cup has had very poor quality games, teams, excitement... I haven't seen any team that stands out and you say to yourself: "watch out for these guys"... So when this happens, all that is left from this point on is tradition and luck, and that will decide which teams move forward...
Anyhow, lets see... before the Cup started I was betting on England and Spain, but neither have shown the quality to go all the way. Brazil and Argentina are always favorites. To me, Holland has shown the best football out of the 16 that went through to the next phase. Brazil might play them in quarter finals, just like in '94, when Brazil beat them 3-2... and if Brazil makes it to the final, they might play Argentina or Spain...
This is the first post of hopefully many more :P
