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Brazilian Back to the Future
Brazil, too, may be counting on a repeat of history. The buzz in Rio de Janeiro is that Carlos Alberto Parreira is about to be recalled as coach, to replace the unimaginative Luis Felipe Scolari. After a scratchy qualification campaign under four different coaches, the four-time winners need to start looking like champions again, and who better to do that than the man who twice led them to glory, as player and as coach. Parreira knows exactly how hard it can be to please his football-mad countrymen: he once said the national team has 170 million coaches. But few can argue with his record. Besides, superstitious Brazilians will remember what happened the last time the country changed coaches on the eve of the Cup, in 1970: the new man, Mario Zagalo, led the side to victory. |
