International Football
WORLD CUP 2014 STADIUMS BECOME HOME TO CORONAVIRUS VICTIMS
The costly football stadiums Brazil built and refurbished in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup are finding new life as health centres for patients with coronavirus.
Local governments have started signing agreements to use the stadiums – once destined for star-studded matches – as makeshift hospitals and vaccine centres to help deal with an expected surge of Covid-19 cases.
With football in the country suspended until further notice, more than half the clubs in Brazil’s Serie A have given up their stadiums as authorities in densely populated Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro seek to expand hospital capacity to deal with the crisis.
Current South American champions Flamengo are giving control of their famous Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro to health authorities, said club president Rodolfo Landim.
“In this grim moment, I wanted to invite our great Red and Black nation to renew hope and work for better days. Let us take care of our elders, help those who need it most,” he wrote in a message to supporters.
Authorities in Sao Paulo – Brazil’s biggest city – said they would install 200 beds in a field hospital at the Pacaembu municipal stadium to relieve pressure on the city’s hospitals. Work is already underway at the venue – where football legend Pele played hundreds of matches for Santos FC – while two of the city’s big clubs were also lending a hand.
Santos announced that a temporary clinic would be set up in one of the lounges inside its Vila Belmiro stadium.
Corinthians said they have made their Itaquerao stadium and their training headquarters available “so that the authorities can evaluate how they can be used to combat the spread of the disease”.
On March 23, Allianz Parque, home of the Palmeiras football club in Sao Paulo, a line of people snaked around the outside of the stadium as if a match were about to start. But these were not football fans – they were high-risk Brazilians spaced 3m apart and there to get flu shots.
For Brazilians, it is a useful transformation of structures dubbed “white elephants” that later became symbols of corruption in Latin America’s largest economy.
Back in 2014, the idea of Brazil spending US$11 billion (S$15.7 billion) to host the World Cup was a contentious one, with locals and foreigners alike arguing that a nation struggling to provide basic health care, education and even sewage has no right diverting resources to a football championship.
As construction began, the staggering price tag for the stadiums fuelled a frenzy of protests. One common chant: “We want hospitals with Fifa standards!”
In neighbouring Argentina, six major clubs including Buenos Aires’ Boca Juniors and River Plate have also opened their gates should officials need the space.
Brazil currently has over 4,000 confirmed infections and deaths top 100.
A week ago, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta had predicted the virus would reach its peak in the country between April and June, anticipating a drop in Covid-19 infections from September.
Mandetta warned the health system in the country of 210 million people could reach saturation by the end of April.
–AFP
International Football
Former Brazil coach Tite taking break to take care of mental, physical health
Former Brazil coach Tite said he is taking an indefinite career break in order to take care of his mental and physical health.
The 63-year-old, who led Brazil to the 2019 Copa America title, was hospitalised due to a heart issue last August. He was sacked by Flamengo the following month and had most recently been linked with the Corinthians job.
“I realised that there are times when you have to understand that, as a human being, I can be vulnerable and admitting that will certainly make me stronger,” Tite said in a statement posted on his son Matheus Bachi’s Instagram on Tuesday.
“I’m passionate about what I do and I’ll continue to be so, but after talking to my family and observing the signals my body was giving off, I decided that the best thing to do now is to take a break from my career to look after myself for as long as it takes.
“As has become public, there was a conversation in progress with Corinthians, but it will have to be paralysed by a difficult but necessary decision.”
Tite, who stepped down as Brazil coach after their quarter-final exit from the 2022 World Cup, has previously coached a string of Brazilian sides including Gremio, Atletico Mineiro and Palmeiras.
-Reuters
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Brazil have sacked head coach Dorival Jr, the country’s football confederation (CBF) said on Friday after the five-time world champions were thrashed 4-1 away to fierce rivals Argentina in a humiliating qualifying loss in Buenos Aires.
The 62-year-old was appointed in January 2024 after the team spent a year under two caretaker coaches as the Brazilian FA were unable to lure Italian Carlo Ancelotti from Real Madrid.
“The Brazilian Football Confederation informs that coach Dorival Jr is no longer in charge of the Brazilian national team,” the confederation said in a statement.
“The management thanks (Dorival) and wishes him success in continuing his career … the CBF will work to find his replacement,” it added.
Dorival was handed the job after his success with Flamengo in 2022 where he won the Copa Libertadores and Brazilian Cup, a trophy he lifted again the next year with Sao Paulo.
However, he never seemed to get to grips with the national team job and failed to earn the trust of Brazil’s demanding fans after winning only seven of his 16 games in charge.
Sources told Reuters the CBF was not confident in Dorival’s work, considering there had been little to no progress since a lacklustre Copa America campaign when Brazil were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Uruguay last year.
Still, the CBF was willing to wait and see until the 2026 World Cup qualifiers against Ecuador and Paraguay in June to reassess the situation following the end of the European season and the Club World Cup in the U.S. in June and July.
But after Brazil slumped to their heaviest-ever loss in a qualifier when they were thrashed by Argentina this week, CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues decided to pull the trigger.
IDEAL CANDIDATE
Sources told Reuters Ancelotti was still the ideal candidate but he is under contract with Real until July 2026 and there is no indication he would leave the European and Spanish champions.
Brazilian media have reported that Al Hilal’s Portuguese coach Jorge Jesus is the favourite to replace Dorival.
Brazil have been in unfamiliar territory for over two years since crashing out of the 2022 World Cup against Croatia on penalties in the quarter-finals, a heartbreaking elimination that led to the exit of long-time manager Tite.
Their humbling defeat in Buenos Aires was the latest of a series of negative records Brazil have set under caretakers Ramon Menezes and Fernando Diniz and with Dorival in charge. They had never conceded four goals in a World Cup qualifier.
Brazil are in the midst of their worst-ever World Cup qualifying campaign. They are fourth in the South American standings with 21 points, a point above sixth-placed Colombia who currently occupy the final direct qualifying berth.
Never have Brazil lost so many games, conceded so many goals or set so many negative records in the qualifying competition. They have lost five of their 14 games and conceded 16 goals.
Brazil’s 1-0 defeat by Argentina in the Maracana late in 2023 was their first-ever qualifying loss on home soil.
They also lost to Colombia for the first time, saw the end of their unbeaten run against Uruguay stretching back over two decades and were defeated by Morocco and Senegal, having never previously lost to an African nation.
-Reuters
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International Football
England’s German manager Tuchel will not sing the English anthem in his first game
England manager Thomas Tuchel said he would have to “earn the right” to sing the national anthem, God Save the King, after announcing his 26-man squad on Friday ahead of the team’s World Cup qualifiers.
Tuchel, who was appointed as Gareth Southgate’s successor in October and named his first squad to face Albania and Latvia this month, said he would not sing the anthem in his first games in charge.
“It means a lot to me, I can assure you, but I can feel that because it is so meaningful and it is so emotional and it is so powerful, the national anthem, that I have to earn my right to sing it,” the 51-year-old German told a news conference.
Former caretaker manager Lee Carsley was criticised last year for not singing the anthem during his tenure.
However, Tuchel added that while he is proud to be in charge of the team and knows the words to the anthem, he plans to earn the right with results.
“Maybe I have to dive more into the culture and earn my right from you, from the players, from the supporters, so everyone feels like ‘he should sing it now, he’s one of our own, he’s the English manager, he should sing it’,” he said.
-Reuters
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