Explained: Mick Jagger's powerful and long-standing influence on Brazilian football

It was, on the face of it, a nothing story. Brazil were preparing to play Costa Rica at the World Cup, and Rafaella Santos, Neymar's sister, was in the stands. Footballer's sibling watches match: one for the minor celeb pages, at a push, but no more than that.

Yet as kick-off approached, a photo posted by Santos on Instagram from the Saint-Petersburg Stadium started going viral in her homeland. Many saw it as a bad omen – one that the Seleção, who had already failed to beat Switzerland in their opening game, could have done without out. "WHO TOLD HER THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?" ran one typically energetic response.

Santos' crime? Wearing a Rolling Stones jersey.

In the end, Brazil just about managed to grind out a win, scoring twice in extra time. It was, by common consensus, a lucky escape from one of international football's more nefarious invisible forces.

It's Superstitions Week on The Athletic Soccer, so naturally I wrote about the curse of Mick Jagger.

(NB – you can get 40% off a subscription for a limited time using this link.)

World Cup 2018 post-mortem: Five key questions for Brazil after their quarter-final exit in Russia

The dust has settled on Brazil's World Cup exit, and there has been pleasingly little blood-letting in the days since.

Tite looks set to remain in charge until 2022 – an eminently sensible decision given the team's progress over the last couple of years – and while Neymar and Fernandinho have come in for criticism, the recriminations have been fairly tame.

Not that there are not questions that still need answering. Did Tite's stubbornness cost the Seleção against Belgium? Was the midfield up to scratch? And, looking ahead, which players can come in to refresh the side before Qatar?

I offer some answers to those queries in my latest for Unibet.

Four more years: Why Brazil are right to break with tradition and stick with Tite despite World Cup exit

Because Brazil has won the World Cup five times, every defeat is a disaster and every elimination begets an inquest. Usually, the manager is sacrificed to sate the bloodlust, an old face appointed to get critics onside, and the cycle begins again. This is the curse of short-term thinking.

“Our error,” wrote O Globo‘s Carlos Eduardo Mansur last week, “is to always be starting again.”

Or at least that is what usually happens. But in a development every bit as surprising as it is encouraging, the CBF has opted for a different approach this year. Tite, whose charges fell at the quarterfinal stage in Russia, has been offered a new contract that would take him to the next World Cup.

Read this piece on The Athletic website here. And remember, you can get 40% off a subscription until the end of the World Cup.

Roberto Carlos: Neymar is not a diver and deserves respect, not criticism

"Much of the attention after Brazil's World Cup elimination will be on Neymar – whether he was fit, whether he was below his best, whether he is a diver.

"That kind of scrutiny is natural when you are Brazil’s best player. But I think some of the criticism of him this summer has been completely unfair.

"The people who slam ­Neymar would love to be in his place. There’s a lot of ­jealousy in football, which makes people exaggerate and say things they shouldn’t."

That's the latest Roberto Carlos column, which you can read on the Mirror website.

'Another disappointment' – how Brazil's press reacted to the Seleção's World Cup quarter-final defeat to Belgium

"After the victory over Mexico, the cheerleading crowd was euphoric," wrote former Seleção forward Tostão.

"The arrogance had returned: Brazil was the country of football again, all the best players were ours and Tite was the best coach in the world. What we got was another disappointment."

Elsewhere in the Brazilian press this morning, there was opprobrium for Fernandinho after a "disastrous" performance, but also plenty of level-headedness and even the odd note of optimism.

Read my paper review over at The Independent.

Brazil vs Belgium head-to-head: Neymar can inspire Seleção against vulnerable Red Devils

They have yet to put in a real five-star attacking performance, but had you offered Brazil safe passage to the latter stages of the World Cup with a series of 2-0 wins, they would definitely have taken it before the tournament.

It has been a businesslike start for the Seleção, but they are steadily improving – and it helps that the travails of so many other big names have cast their campaign in such generous light.

This, to be sure, is their biggest test to date. Brazilian minds doubtless will go back to 2002, when Belgium gave Luiz Felipe Scolari's their most difficult game en route to the title, and while victory would set up an even tougher game on this occasion (France or Uruguay await), beating the Red Devils would again do wonders for confidence and momentum.

I contributed to Unibet's head-to-head preview of this game. Read it here.

Magic moments: Brazil still looking for rhythm but ruthless in Neymar-inspired victory over Mexico

Unspectacular but solid: if World Cups are won as much in the dog work as the artistic flourishes, this Brazil side are going to take some stopping this summer.

Again, the Seleção took some time to get going. Again, it was a businesslike performance rather than a theatre piece. And again, for the third game in a row, they had the nous to roll with the punches and get over the line. Watch out, world; that famous winning engine is starting to rumble.

It helps, of course, when your side is studded with solid-gold attacking talent, and while questions remain over Brazil's ability to sustain their threat over 90 minutes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This may currently be a team that comes to life only in moments, but what moments they are.

Read the rest of this reaction piece on the Unibet blog.

Roberto Carlos: I didn't celebrate Germany's failure, but Brazil are stronger World Cup favourites every day

"I know a lot of Brazilians celebrated Germany's elimination, but not me. When one of the great teams is going through a tough moment, I don’t like to punch them when they’re down.

"It happened to Germany this year, but it could be us next time. And we’ve already gone through some difficult times of our own, like the final defeat in 1998 and the 7-1 in 2014.

"Things are looking rosy for Brazil now, though. The performance was good against Costa Rica, even though it took a while to score the goals, and we were even better against Serbia. With every day that passes, we're stronger favourites to win the World Cup."

That's the latest Roberto Carlos column in the Sunday Mirror. Read it online here.

Brazil vs Mexico head-to-head: Seleção building momentum and eyeing quarter-final berth

Brazil vs Mexico head-to-head for @unibet: Seleção starting to build some momentum https://t.co/WyzKkjqrYg pic.twitter.com/TaW9vB35qO

— Jack Lang (@jacklang) July 1, 2018

Brazil vs Serbia head-to-head: Seleção can profit from White Eagles' attacking outlook

Their World Cup campaign is still relatively young, but already Brazil seem determined to do things the hard way.

After huffing and puffing their way to a point against Switzerland, the Seleção suffered again against Costa Rica, only managing to turn their dominance of possession into goals in injury time. In a few days' time, the national sigh of relief will probably be felt in Europe as a gale-force wind off the Atlantic.

The positive for Tite was that the performance in that second game was better than the result. Brazil created enough chances to bury Los Ticos three times over, and rarely looked troubled at the back.

But Neymar's histrionics will be a concern, as will the form of Willian, Paulinho and Gabriel Jesus, none of whom has really come to the party yet.

I did the Brazil bits in Unibet's head-to-head preview of the game against Serbia. 

What's eating Neymar Júnior?

The fact that Neymar is under significant pressure is undeniable. Nowhere are football fans more expectant than Brazil, and the 26-year-old, for all the improvement since Tite’s arrival as coach, remains absolutely central to the Seleção's chances of glory this summer. This is the fate of the craque, or star player: with great power comes great responsibility.

With Neymar, though, there are extra layers to the player-public relationship. If he represents the best of the Brazilian game—that untrainable, off-the-cuff sorcery of the street footballer—he has often been accused of personifying the worst of it, too: the play-acting, the individualism, the egomania.

“We’re creating a monster,” was one coach’s memorable remark after an unsavory incident during his time at Santos (Neymar swore at his manager, who was sacked shortly thereafter), and while he has ironed out some of the more galling kinks in his personality, others remain.

Read the rest of this piece on The Athletic. You'll need a subscription, but there's loads of great stuff on there and you can enjoy a free seven-day trial to see whether it's for you.

Roberto Carlos: Neymar's tears don't concern me – he needed to let the emotion out after a tough time

"Neymar played well against Costa Rica, and took his goal nicely.

"He’s not at top speed yet – you can see that he’s clearly still trying to forget about the pain he’s had in his foot over the last few months. But he’s getting there, building up his fitness. We’re going to see him at his best when the knockout stages get underway.

"What I like about Neymar is that he’s always desperate to help the team, even when he’s not firing on all cylinders. We all know about his ability, but there’s also a collective spirit there; he thinks about the group, not just himself."

That's the latest Roberto Carlos column, which you can read on the Mirror website.

The blame game: Why complaints from Brazil's football federation jar with Tite's calls for accountability

Not for the first time, Galvão Bueno spoke for the more excitable, more parochial subsection of Brazil's fanbase. The 67-year-old commentator, still rolled out like heavy artillery for big games by the all-powerful Globo network, has always been a bellwether when it comes to the national team, his yelps both reflecting and shaping public opinion.

Of the 56 million Brazilian TV sets tuned in to the Seleção's game against Switzerland on Sunday, 79% were set to Globo. That is a sizeable constituency even before you consider the whole-families-crowding-round-one-screen factor, and so when Galvão (he's big enough a star to be known mostly by his first name) began to steam over Steven Zuber's equalising goal, the national temperature rose in kind.

"Video refereeing is going to mess up this World Cup," he hollered, before flirting with cheap conspiracy theory: "They've already helped France and now they've disadvantaged Brazil." In no time at all, some of the neurotic corners of Brazilian Twitter were buzzing with talk of 'robbery' and anti-South-American bias.

Read my latest piece for The Athletic, on the chasm between Brazil's coach and his federation, here.

Rivaldo interview: I don't want to see Brazil players crying during the national anthem – it's a sign of weakness

Rivaldo doesn't want to talk about tactics.

"The team is in good shape," he says of the current Brazil side, but that's about the limit of the analysis as far as Tite's system is concerned.

What Rivaldo really wants to get into is the mental side of being at a World Cup: the business of coping with pressure, overcoming difficulties, writing a new story for oneself.

These are subjects the current crop of Brazil players would do well to confront head on as they seek to bounce back from the seismic shock of the 7-1 semifinal defeat to Germany in 2014. And Rivaldo, who still looks like he could do a job for the Selecao at the age of 46, is well qualified to hold forth on them.

Read my two-part interview with the Seleção legend on the ESPNFC website, here and here.

Everyone's a leader, baby: On Tite's policy of captaincy and its potential benefits for Brazil in Russia

Traditionalists will no doubt squirm at the very idea. They will tell you that the captain's armband holds some arcane folk power, handed down through the generations like an heirloom.

Think about Bobby Moore’s frictionless authority, Terry Butcher bleeding for the cause, John Terry captaining and leadering and legending…and that’s before you even leave the realm of the English-pub conversationscape where these imagined naysayers dwell. It’s the captaincy, for heaven’s sake; it’s sacred.

Not for Brazil coach Tite, it isn’t. He’s given the armband to the pillars of his side (Marcelo, Neymar, Dani Alves, Miranda), but also to squad players (Filipe Luís), fading veterans (Robinho) and even, in the pre-World-Cup friendly against Croatia, 21-year-old striker Gabriel Jesus. And if the latter admitted to being “very surprised” at the decision, the look on his face said he was bloody happy about it, too.

I'm writing about Brazil for US sports website The Athletic all World Cup. My first dispatch, on Brazil's captaincy rotation, is here. (NB – requires subscription.)

Brazil vs England 2002 – an oral history, with Luiz Felipe Scolari, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos and more

For a generation of England fans, 2002 is as good as it has ever been. Revenge on Argentina, a commanding win over Denmark... it was tempting to wonder, even if just momentarily, whether football might actually be coming home.

It wasn’t, but the final act – a quarter-final meeting with Brazil – was nonetheless a fittingly dramatic end to a rollercoaster summer. As limp England tournament exits go, it was one to cherish.

For the Seleção, though, this was a major hurdle cleared en route to a fifth World Cup title. And while we are well acquainted with the England talking points from that day, from Owen’s fitness and David Seaman‘s positioning to Sven-Göran Eriksson’s tactics, the Brazilian perspective sheds new light on the game.

For The Independent, and aided by Luiz Felipe Scolari and three of his players that year, this is the oral history of that Shizuoka tussle. 

Roberto Carlos: Brazil will start with a win – and Willian can be one of the stars of the World Cup

"Neymar is going to be ­marvellous in Russia and win the trophy for us. But you know who else is going to have a big World Cup? Willian. People talk about Messi, Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski and Neymar, but for me, Willian is right up there.

"He’s in really good form and always takes ­responsibility on the pitch. He’s a quiet guy who keeps to himself, but he’s going to surprise a lot of people this summer."

Roberto Carlos is the Sunday Mirror's special World Cup columnist, with yours truly his wingman.

Have a read of his first dispatch from Russia here. 

Brazil vs Switzerland head-to-head: Patience may be needed as the Seleção get started in Rostov

Let's see how this favouritism thing works out then, shall we?

After weeks of hype, Brazil join the World Cup party on Sunday night, hoping to put down a marker against Switzerland in Rostov.

And while it would be a stretch to call a game against a side ranked sixth in the world (no, me neither) a gimme, a victory is very much expected of the Seleção.

Read my quick head-to-head preview – written with a Switzerland follower – on the Unibet blog.

Brazil and the 7-1: The inside story of the most shocking World Cup match of all time

At what point was it over, exactly?

Certainly long before the sixth and seventh goals, scored by André Schürrle, who must have wandered off to the toilet when the whole "let's not embarrass them" conversation was taking place in the Germany changing room at half-time. The fifth, maybe, or perhaps the fourth, offered up on a platter by a punch-drunk Fernandinho. But no, Brazil's race was already run by that stage. The cameras had already started to pick out tear-stained faces in the crowd, face paint smudging into collars and PTSD on order.

The third or second, then? Those were the goals that turned a bad start into a disastrous one, that knocked the wind out of a nation. The hosts were in a World Cup semi-final and then they weren't, suffocated and subjugated by that endless blur of Kroos, Müller, Klose, Kroos, Özil, Khedira, Kroos, Müller. Or was it over even before the first whistle, that po-faced funeral procession for Neymar betraying some fundamental misalignment between the mental state of the players and the nature of the task at hand? Was there so much emotion, so much pressure that summer – "It was like Brazil had come to participate in the Hunger Games," said Zico – that an implosion was inevitable?

Watching it back now, one cannot help but be reminded of the pronouncements made by José Maria Marin, the cadaverous head of Brazil's football federation. "Only a catastrophe will prevent us winning," he said on the eve of the tournament, to no obvious useful end. "If we lose, we're all going to hell." The words had a macabre slant then. By the time Germany were finished, they had taken on the air of prophesy.

That's the start of a long piece for Eurosport on the 7-1, its impact on those involved, and Brazil's long road to recovery. It includes an interview with Luiz Felipe Scolari and you can read it (or just swoon over the gorgeous artwork) here.

The Tite revolution: How the studious, enigmatic preacher-coach dragged the Brazil team into the modern era

Fatherly, enthusiastic and protective when the occasion demands, Tite is beloved by the players, while his collaborative approach behind the scenes – he has a small army of back-room staff – has also won him admirers.

He goes about his job with seriousness, but also with a smile, which goes a long way. "I would kill for Tite," Marcelo said last year, and he would probably have 22 accomplices if it ever came to that.

From a distance, all of this might seem slightly surreal. This, after all, is a manager who has never managed outside Brazil, let alone in one of Europe's top leagues. Yet while Tite might be a late bloomer on the world stage, his quality has never been in doubt in his homeland.

"I'm not surprised he's doing so well," Scolari, who led Brazil to World Cup glory in 2002, told the Telegraph. "Of course, the Brazil job is bigger than any club job, but Tite has always been a good coach. Always."

Read my piece on Tite and his renovation job with the Seleção on the Telegraph website.