Less than one year away from the World Cup, Brazil have been going through a lot of changes as Carlo Ancelotti tries to steady the ship.
The loss against Croatia on penalties in the 2022 quarter finals still stings Brazilians to this day. That match not only meant an early end to their campaign, but also the start of a very turbulent institutional period.
Managers sacked, corruption scandals, presidency changes. Everything you could possibly imagine happened in the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) in less than a World Cup cycle.
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Tite left after relatively unlucky 2018 and 2022 failures, Fernando Diniz came in as interim while also trying to balance club duties with Fluminense and Dorival Junior couldn’t replicate his domestic success in the international stage.
Now, Carlo Ancelotti is trying to weather the storm – and seems to be on the right track.
Change in styles
Brazil had a very clear structure during the Tite tenure, between 2016 and 2022. It relied heavily on what is known nowadays as positional play, with a rigid structure, fullbacks staying back and/or cutting inside and wingers out wide.
Diniz, however, is basically the antithesis to this philosophy and tried to implement a random, chaotic, and asymmetric style based on overloads. He wasn’t given the time to make it work, but also didn’t show enough progress to justify continuity and was sacked.
His successor Dorival Junior shares a lot of the same ideas but learned his lesson. He tried to go back to how the Selecao played under Tite – despite not being the kind of football that led to him getting the job in the first place. It also didn’t work.
Ancelotti is the first one to show real progress maintaning a few of the old ideas that a few players already know while also trying to add his own personal touch.
You can still see a three-man pairing at the back in possession, with the left-back joining the central defenders and the right-back charging forward, the same way it was under Tite. But now, the structure is more fluid and Ancelotti promotes more freedom of movement and a more collective game overall.
It’s not fully “Ancelotti-ball” yet, with forwards still spread out throughout the whole width of the field. But there are more switches of play and ‘crowding’ where it is developing.
And we’re also just three games into his tenure, so it’s too early to make any big picture statements. However, the initial signs have been positive so far, with the Selecao increasing the level of performance each match.
Striker-less for 2026?
Brazil have lacked in the striker department for a long time now. It had never been a problem before, but since Ronaldo in 2006 it feels like the situation has gotten worse every World Cup cycle.
The problem is that there’s always been a cultural need for a goalscorer from the Brazilian people. Deeply rooted in nostalgia from basically all five of their World Cup titles – even though Pele himself wasn’t actually a number nine.
Chelsea’s Joao Pedro and Manchester United’s Matheus Cunha currently appear as Brazil’s best options for the role. And both have suffered by having to play as strikers despite neither of them being one.
Now, under Ancelotti, the scenario changes. The 66-year-old knows better than anyone how to utilise a striker in a ‘cooperative’ way. What he did with Karim Benzema in his second stint at Real Madrid was nothing short of incredible.
So it looks like Brazil will go into the 2026 World Cup without a true striker. And it’s not like there are great options anyway. Ancelotti didn’t seem to fully trust Endrick in Spain, Pedro lacks intensity and has had disciplinary issues at Flamengo, while Igor Jesus had a few good months of football at Botafogo and will have to prove it wasn’t just a fluke now in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest.
Plus, the likes of Raphinha, Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and Gabriel Martinelli can make up for that with movement and runs towards the box. The two Real Madrid men even formed a deadly attacking duo in Spain with the lack of a number nine, with other midfielders such as Jude Bellingham chipping in as well.
No Neymar either?
The fact that we’ve gone over 600 words talking about the Brazil national team without mentioning Neymar’s name speaks volumes.
Now back in his native land, he enjoyed a few weeks of fully healthy and 90-minute football. But the level of intensity and overall quality he delivers during the 90 minutes is nowhere near what it used to be.
So much so that Ancelotti himself said that Neymar’s omission from the most recent call-up was a choice, not injury-related. The Santos star even played after the Italian manager named his team for the games against Chile and Bolivia.
At the end of the day, Neymar is still Neymar and there’s nothing bad to say about his technical level. If he’s fit enough, there will be a spot for him in the plane to North America next year.
But it’s clear that Ancelotti is planning ahead and wondering what a team without him would look like – because this is a real possibility.