I was reading about older world cup tournaments and it just occurred to me, Brazil is really damn good at football. Yeah they don't have the sexiest team right now compared to the 90s and before but I think it's getting there.
So what makes them so damn good? They have the most world cups. Everyone else on that list is nation that does economically much better than Brazil so that means better infrastructure and general diet and health. It's not like Brazilians are known for highly disciplined tams as well with a ton of off the field issues.
Also, compared to other successful nations, their league is not the quality of the top European leagues or in close proximity to leagues that good.
What do you all think it is?
If the richer European teams wouldn't come in for talented players (like Endrick) when they're only 15, their league would be brilliant. Even now I find it quite entertaining to watch, esp. with a couple of teams being consistently good in recent years. Flamengo a few years ago had a brilliant team, that even playing their 77th game of the season, gave a peak Liverpool a very hard time. If all or even just most talents stayed there longer, the league would be great. Also, since Argentina and Brazil don't transfer too many players between them, but rather pick from the other South American countries, I think the level is a pretty good level to enter as a young player. Lots of very young players will get a lot of senior team experience.
Also they have like 210 million people or something like that, and football is absolutely adored there, making it a large crop of players total. They start playing from they're like 3 hours old. They play it on the beaches, they play it on the landing grounds, they play it in the field and in the streets, they play it in the hills. They never stop playing football.
There are huge and iconic clubs domestically. Quite a lot of states have their own big club, or several, and quite a lot of lower level clubs will get to play the big clubs in regional championships, which I think will make the path to a big club seem shorter to walk. Easy to aspire to. Each state sort of have their own eco-system when it comes to football, and a lot of clubs put a lot of effort into producing young players. There are even investors and agents that buy into football talent schools and help scouting, in the hopes of making a profit when they unearth and produce a gem.
Renan Lodi is an example of a player that came through in such a way. Big clubs start scouting and recruiting quite young, talent schools and similar start even earlier, in order to sell players on by the time they're 14-15.
Lots of reasons.