Felipão

Em Inglaterra, já há quem esteja à coca:

It’s hard to know who’s happier — Chelsea or the tabloids. For the tabloids, “Big Phil” is perfect. From central casting. He’s already got a nickname - which they never managed with Avram Grant. And he’s famous. He’s won the World Cup and has managed a very successful Portuguese team with household names like Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco. And he’s a character (apparently). As for Chelsea, he’s perfect. he’s famous. He’s won the World Cup and has managed a very successful Portuguese team with household names, etc, etc. He might keep Carvalho at Stamford Bridge and might lure Deco over from Barcelona and keep him out of the clutches of Mourinho. And, crucially, he’s big enough a name, to prevent the expected exodus this summer.

If he’s perfect for Chelsea, Chelsea also happen to be perfect for him. They’re rich, he’s inheriting a good side and they’re used to very defensive football.

1) Scolari likes money. After all, he spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s in the middle east managing three different clubs in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well as the Kuwait national team (one of five Brazilian coaches in three years in the early 1990s) and a Japanese club side in 1997. So it’s not altogether a surprise that he returned Peter Kenyon’s call. Also, coincidentally, Palmeiras in Sao Paulo were the richest club in Brazil when he was there because of a sponsorship deal with the Italian dairy giant, Parmalat. That sponsorship deal finished the year he left for Cruzeiro, his last club job, where he won nothing — they came 3rd in the Brazilian leaguie in 2000 and 21st in 2001. He then left to manage Brazil.


2) He likes inheriting good sides. Yes, he led Brazil to win the 2002 World Cup but it helped having Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos at their peak. Not bad. Ronaldo scored eight goals in that tournament and Rivaldo five. They also had a fab draw. Their group consisted of Turkey, China and Costa Rica, then Belgium and England in the early knockout stages, a narrow 1-0 victory over Turkey in the semis and then Germany in the Final. It was a strange World Cup (Turkey and South Korea in the semis) and Brazil won it playing only one top team. All eyes were on Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho. Why not? They scored 15 of Brazil’s 18 goals in seven matches. It was easy to miss the superb defence: four goals conceded in seven. That is the ‘Big Phil’ way.

He then inherited his second great team at Portugal. More precisely, he inherited the remains of the ‘golden generation’ who had reached the semis of the 2000 European Championship — Figo, Rui Costa, Couto, Pauleta. And he added the new golden generation: Cristiano Ronaldo, Deco, Carvalho and Maniche, all of whom started playing for Portugal in 2003. It was a superb mix of young and old, exciting attack and strong defence. And they were the host nation. What could go wrong? They got to the Final but they only won three games out of six, scoring a measly eight goals in six games. They reached the final because they only conceded six. Another Scolari solid defence.

Then the 2006 World Cup. Again hardly any goals, even with Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo. Six goals in six games, but they were almost impossible to score against, conceding only two goals, one of those a Zidane penalty that knocked them out in the semis (1-0). But the problem was they just couldn’t score. They beat the Netherlands 1-0 in the famous last 16 punch-up (16 yellow cards, four red cards); they couldn’t even score against England, winning on penalties in the quarter-finals and then couldn’t score, again, against France in the semis.

3) This is the secret to Scolari’s success — a great defence. Like Ranieri, Mourinho and Grant he builds from the back. The difference is that Scolari’s had some luck: he’s inherited Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho at their best, and then Figo, Deco and Cristiano Ronaldo at their best. That’s pretty good. Have a great defence and then strikers like that and you should be OK.

The question at Chelsea, then, is if he loses Drogba and Lampard, who will score Scolari’s goals? Until the last moments, United were going to win the League on goal difference because they had scored so many more goals than Chelsea. In the FA Cup final Mourinho won in 2007 and in the Champions League Final in 2008 they managed one goal in each game. From Drogba and Lampard, of course. So goals is an issue for Chelsea. Great defence, great midfield and dodgy attack. And then they hire Scolari, whose story for the past decade is great defence, great midfield and surprisingly few goals given that he’s had some of the greatest forwards in the world. “Big Phil”? Really??