Dunga is a really underrated and misunderstood player nowadays, he was a great DM actually. He is stereotyped nowadays as just a destroyer and a violent player. While he certainly could be a violent player that could be really rough when stopping other players, he was technically gifted with the ball. Not a great creator or master of through balls, but still someone who controlled the tempo of the game and distributed the ball with very high quality and a good passer. In the 1994 World Cup, he made almost 700 passes, still the record number of passes made by a player in a single World Cup. In the 1998 World Cup, almost 600. He is the only player to feature two times in the Top 10 of players with highest number of passes in a single World Cup edition.
Dunga is a really underrated and misunderstood player nowadays
- Thread starter matbezlima
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It's because he did not join a top European club. It's that simple. And for a player in that role, you do not gain recognition for playing at a low reputation club. A defensive midfielder at a smaller club will never get the attention of a totti, batistuta or david villa. People find it really hard to judge that position as well and mostly go off of what they are told by pundits. Makhalele before Chelsea would not be remembered today.
Makelele before Chelsea played for Real Madrid. He also cost Chelsea £17m back then which was a lot of money.
Dunga was more than just a destroyer. Some of the passes he used to spray with the outside of his boot were exquisite and he controlled matches to let the attacking players attack.
Yes, all that is true, but Karembeau also played for Madrid, doesn't mean we remember him the way we do of Makhalele
Opportunity to post Bebeto, Dunga and Branco demolishing Maradona's 4 a side team in a TV show in Argentina after the 94 world cup.
Bebeto really was something else, underrated player
streamable.com/7xq7w
Bebeto really was something else, underrated player
streamable.com/7xq7w
Very nice find. I don't recognise the other Argentine players. Was Branco the leftback that played for Middlesboro or am I confusing him for someone else?
That's revisionist nonsense.
Makelele was considered World Class at Real and the opinion at the time was that they were mad to let him go.
The one and the same.
Yep, the consensus amongst Madrid and football fans alike was that selling Makalele was a huge mistake. Perez' decision apparently being because he didn't fit the Galactico profile he had in mind.
Top class defensive midfielder, one of the few that combined reliability with productive use of the ball. Probably doesn’t get the acclaim he deserves for two reasons. First would be his eclectic club career as @tjb says. A lot of South American players of that era spun out random club careers and would then dominate European national teams at World Cups. Today we would judge players on the calibre of clubs on their CV but back then wealth was spread out much more evenly within and across leagues. And second would be the reaction to Brazil’s shift to defensive tactics post 1982 embodied by midfield destroyers assuming the place of creators. And Dunga was seen as the poster boy of that negative shift away from joga bonito.
Fantastic thread. I was thinking about Dunga last week when I was reminiscing about the 1994 Brazil side. Dunga was a colossus for Brazil back then. I've always thought of him as a Keane-like figure for Brazil -- technically gifted, although not by the standards of most top Brazilian footballers, but he was no less a midfield general than Keane, possibly the greatest midfield general of the last two generations. Dunga was superb all the way around.
To be fair, the 80s and 90s, specially the italian league, were full of great players spread out among lesser clubs. Prime Serie A was the destiny of almost every player at one point or other, even if it meant sometimes that good players ended up in relegation teams. At the same time, this was really fun and meant that the gap between the giants and the smaller clubs was nowhere near as big as now. Today we have too many stars concentrated in few teams, stars that often get only the bench while they could be making history with a lesser club, like Totti, Maradona and Batistuta did.
Dunga always had a difficult relationship with the media, who made him the scapegoat for Brazil's failure in the 1990 World Cup. That's why when he lifted the 1994 trophy he screamed in anger.
In 2006 after Brazil failed big at that World Cup, he was pretty much hired to phase out Ronaldinho and get rid of other big names like Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos.
Then, he won the Copa America in 2007 with a team full of players of his trust and went on to reward some of them with further call-ups despite the lack of better football
You all know how he didn't pick Ronaldinho and Neymar to the 2010 World Cup, and that was questioned by brazilian media, with him even calling a journalist names in a press conference
As a player, he was very good, maybe world class on his best days. Always gave 100% on the field. He was quite similar to Roy Keane both in playing style and personality.
In 2006 after Brazil failed big at that World Cup, he was pretty much hired to phase out Ronaldinho and get rid of other big names like Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos.
Then, he won the Copa America in 2007 with a team full of players of his trust and went on to reward some of them with further call-ups despite the lack of better football
You all know how he didn't pick Ronaldinho and Neymar to the 2010 World Cup, and that was questioned by brazilian media, with him even calling a journalist names in a press conference
As a player, he was very good, maybe world class on his best days. Always gave 100% on the field. He was quite similar to Roy Keane both in playing style and personality.
People make fun of Dunga to this day for this
Fair to say similar to Deschamps in the French team, labelled as water carrier but was more technically gifted than given credit? He had some good seasons with Fiorentina when Serie A was at his peak. Also converted two high pressure penalties in 94 and 98 world cup.
More curious by him as a manager. 2006-10 is interesting, won Copa America and was possibly unlucky in 2010 world cup but can't say Brazil's football ever impressed me in that period although it was transitioning from Ronaldo-Ronaldinho era and Kaka was on way down around 2010 aswell.
More baffled how Brazil then chose to re-appoint him around 4-5 years later. That really was bizarre. Likes of 37 year old Ricardo Oliveria leading the line in world cup qualifying and Hulk also playing key attacking role. Poor results at the start and if he'd been given the full 18 games Brazil would've probably struggled to make it like Argentina given how dsfunctional they were. Poor results in the two Copa Americas held within 12 months aswell.
More curious by him as a manager. 2006-10 is interesting, won Copa America and was possibly unlucky in 2010 world cup but can't say Brazil's football ever impressed me in that period although it was transitioning from Ronaldo-Ronaldinho era and Kaka was on way down around 2010 aswell.
More baffled how Brazil then chose to re-appoint him around 4-5 years later. That really was bizarre. Likes of 37 year old Ricardo Oliveria leading the line in world cup qualifying and Hulk also playing key attacking role. Poor results at the start and if he'd been given the full 18 games Brazil would've probably struggled to make it like Argentina given how dsfunctional they were. Poor results in the two Copa Americas held within 12 months aswell.
Was more suprised Pato didn't get called up for 2010 than Neymar unless he was already bogged down by injuries at Milan by then.
Brazil called up Luis Fabiano, Robinho, Julio Baptista, Nilmar and Grafite so pretty average group of strikers. Luis Fabiano had a couple of fantastic seasons at Sevilla but following Ronaldo a no win situaiton. Adriano also would've been a cert for 2010 but for personal issues.
Dunga's first work with Brazil maybe kinda underrated. Team was overly pragmatic and did not play great football, but still very solid. Kinda like Deschamps in 2018. Felipe Melo really ruined things for Brazil against Holland, he was a good player but violent and always prone to do something stupid and get sent off at the worst moment. Dunga was a rough and violent player, but he was not stupid as Felipe Melo.
your point is good, even if the example isn’t. Karembeau, who played for France as well, was nowhere near the quality, nor status, of Makelele when playing for RM.
To the point of the OP, Deschamps, Mauro Silva, Roy Keane, Javier Mascherano and Graemen Souness where also players of which many have underestimated their technical qualities because of the stereotype of being a different type of player. Even Paul Ince to an extent, who was fantastic for us 1992-94.
Where to start....This was a bloody brilliant watch!
To be fair to Karembeu he did have Redondo and often Seedorf in front of him for the midfield places. It's actually an interesting comparison with him and Karembeu as both came through at Nantes and played as midfield partners for a few seasons together including a league winning one. It seems at that time Karembeu was considered the superior player in France from what i've heard, though he was 2 years older. He was one of the main players keeping Makelele out of the NT until 2001/2002'ish, there can't have been that big a gap in talent. It seems more like a case of one declines around 30 and the other maintains things and had a bit more fortune as to who he had to compete against in his position when he got his big move.
Maybe so. My impression, from watching them a fair few games for France, Sampdoria, Celta, RM, Middlesbrough and Chelsea, was that Karembeu developed early and stagnated at a very good level, never a key player in any team I watched with slight exceptance for Sampa, whereas Makelele developped more gradually and continued to develop to a really brilliant player, very important for Celta, RM, Chelsea and France 2006.
Their International carreers where marked by the fact that in 98, Didier Deschamps was a given, Emmanuel Petit was in his prime, and Karembeu was already established at France and Real Madrid. Makelele, 25, was coming into his own at Celta, but the great prodigy Patrick Vieira was selected to go. In 2000, France had Deschamps, Petit and Patrick Vieira. Makelele was chosen by RM as a better option than Karembeu and replaced one with the other that summer, but Karembeu was a safer back up option for France, and probably more versatile as a stand in, he even played full back in one game.
After 2000, France went collectively into a decline, and didn’t come back before Makelele, Zidane, Vieira and Thuram took the reins from Domeneq on the field in 2006. Francearound 2000 was so spoilt for choice in CM it’s criminal.
To me, anyway, Karembeu never showed that higher level Makelele showed at Celta, RM and Chelsea.
Pato played very poorly in the Olympics 2008 which Dunga coached. No doubt that went into his decision making.