Cesar laments Scolari acquisition

Former Brazil star Paulo Cesar believes Pep Guardiola should have been appointed as coach of the national side, not Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Cesar, who was a member of the 1970 World Cup winning side, is frustrated Scolari has instead been chosen to lead Brazil for a second time after securing World Cup success in 2002.

Cesar feels Scolari has struggled to prove his worth since that achievement after failing to succeed at clubs such as Chelsea and Palmeiras.

“We have now an ugly way of playing with figures of between 50-to-100 wrong passes on average per match. Everything is going wrong,” he said.

“Brasileiro Serie A, Brasileiro Serie B, Brasileiro Serie C, clubs academies, and so on. When you spend a month reviewing the national team situation and then the coach is fired you say, thank God.

“But then they hire a coach who is so old, he is not up to date in terms of tactics. He was terrible at Palmeiras and the club was relegated this season because of him.

“He’s won nothing in the last few years. He didn’t win anything as coach of Portugal. He saw them lose to Greece 2-0, playing the Euro 2004 final in Lisbon.

“Then he was hired by Chelsea and a couple of months after ended up fired. Then he went to Uzbekistan. And now he’s back because of what he achieved in 2002? So why not to hire (Mario) Zagallo? He won the World Cup four times. We had a great opportunity for change.”

Cesar said Guardiola would have brought about a change in mentality of the national side and brought a greater unity to the team’s undoubted individual talent.

“It’s been a year now that I’ve been saying Guardiola was the right man for the job. He could had changed the philosophy of our football,” he said.

“To get things back to the way it was originally – playing the real beautiful game with Guardiola.

“He even said that he would give up his sabbatical year for the job. I’m a Barcelona fan and always have been. I support football above all.

“If Spain keeps playing like the two previous Euros and the World Cup then no one will be able to stop them.

“Even Germany have changed their style under Joachim Loew. Argentina with (Alejandro) Sabella are playing different now, playing as a group, and not relying only on individual talents. But we are not doing this in Brazil. Here we are stuck in our old ways.”