No country has ever won the World Cup with a foreign-born coach but Carlo Ancelotti said Monday that there was “always a first time” as he eyes glory with Brazil.<\/p>\n
The Italian became Brazil’s first overseas coach in six decades when he took over in May and he helped the five-times champions punch their ticket for next summer’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
Brazil face Japan in a friendly in Tokyo on Tuesday, fresh from a 5-0 hammering of South Korea in Seoul last week.<\/p>\n
Ancelotti said he is aiming to create history for himself and his team at the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
“My goal is to give my best for the Brazil national team, to try to get them to perform at their best and to win the World Cup,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Of course, no foreign-born coach has ever won the World Cup but there is always a first time in life.”<\/p>\n
Brazil made hard work of qualifying, finishing fifth in the South American table.<\/p>\n
Ancelotti is their fourth coach since Tite stepped down following the quarter-final loss to Croatia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n
Brazil sparkled against South Korea, with 18-year-old starlet Estevao scoring twice and Real Madrid pair Rodrygo and Vinicius Jr. also among the goals.<\/p>\n
– ‘Jogo bonito’ –<\/p>\n
Brazilian fans hailed the win as a return to “jogo bonito” but Ancelotti said there was more to his team than that.<\/p>\n
“Brazilian players have the quality to play beautiful football but you have to think about what you mean by beautiful football,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Brazilian players have individual quality but that is combined with teamwork and movement off the ball, and that’s very important in football.”<\/p>\n
Brazil travelled to Asia without forward Neymar, 33, who was ruled out of action until at least November with a thigh injury.<\/p>\n
Time is running out for Brazil’s record goalscorer to force his way back into the squad before the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Ancelotti said there were no questions over Neymar’s quality.<\/p>\n
“If Neymar is in good condition then of course he can fit into the national team,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If Neymar is fit then he can play in any team in the world.”<\/p>\n
Japan were the first team to book their place at next year’s World Cup after cruising through Asian qualifying.<\/p>\n
They have never beaten Brazil in 13 attempts and are without several injured players including Brighton winger Kaoru Mitoma and Liverpool midfielder Wataru Endo.<\/p>\n
Coach Hajime Moriyasu said beating Brazil would give them the confidence to make an impact in North America.<\/p>\n
“We want to win and to grow as a team and give everything for this challenge,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Brazil are one of the top teams in the world and we respect them, but we have players who are playing in Europe and getting experience there.”<\/p>\n
amk\/pst<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No country has ever won the World Cup with a foreign-born coach but Carlo Ancelotti said Monday that there was “always a first time” as he eyes glory with Brazil. The Italian became Brazil’s first overseas coach in six decades when he took over in May and he helped the five-times champions punch their ticket […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[1209,289,972],"class_list":["post-13783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-bra","tag-fbl","tag-jpn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}