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Search: 'Brazil'

Stories

Drawing a blank

Paraguay fared well at the Copa América and the World Cup, but as Simeon Tegel tells us, their style of play has frustrated many fans

Is the glass half-full or half-empty? That is the question dogging Paraguay’s national team after achieving two of their best ever tournament results, in the Copa América and World Cup, while barely winning a match. The Guaraníes, nicknamed after the indigenous group that still lives in swathes of the country, finished runners-up in August’s South American championship and made it to the last eight in South Africa, a first for the sparsely populated nation in a World Cup.

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Back to front

By moving their central defenders forward into midfield, English managers are taking a tactical step backwards, says Adam Bate

After the initial excitement, it only took a few difficult games for questions to be raised about Phil Jones. “In the end… Jones is there to stop, not start, the fun,” wrote Paul Hayward in the Guardian. And he is right, of course. A defender should be able to defend. Less understandable is the desire to move Jones into midfield – as Alex Ferguson did against Liverpool – simply because he can trap a football. It seems that Jones is just the latest victim of English football’s love affair with converting the centre-half.

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Unqualified success

Ronnie Esplin relfects on an encouraging Euro 2012 campaign for Craig Levein’s Scotland

Craig Levein sat defiantly in the basement of the Estadio José Rico Pérez in Alicante on October 11, following Scotland’s Euro 2012 qualifier defeat by Spain, and told the media the future of the national team was bright. The manager bullishly claimed his side had “improved enormously in the last year” and looked forward to building on that for the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign.

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Cheap and easy

Cameron Carter bemoans shallow and immature football programmes

Some day, all programmes will be made this way. 20 Football Transfers That Shocked The World (ITV4, October 18) was a list programme that raised several questions. Was Manchester City’s acquisition of Steve Daley the worst business of the 1970s? How did Brazil’s World Cup-winning captain Socrates come to play for Garforth Town? Has Fabio Capello nothing better to do than add his comments on a list programme? Surely if he were at a loose end between qualifiers, the FA could give him an experimental side project, such as trying to kill white mice simply by scowling at them from a technical area.

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In low spirits

Socrates’s illness has highlighted alcohol’s impact on Brazilian football, reports Robert Shaw

Brazilian football legend Socrates left hospital on September 22 after two stays for stomach haemorrhaging and liver-related problems that could yet necessitate a transplant. Given that doctors admit that the 57-year-old’s condition was life-theatening, the relief among friends, family and the better part of 190 million football fans is tangible.

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