Brazil's first ever loss in a home World Cup qualifier - what’s going wrong for the Seleção?

Brazil sixth in World Cup qualification group - what’s going wrong for the Samba boys?

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The chaos that ensued off the pitch before Brazil’s 1-0 loss to Argentina at the Maracanã on Tuesday night, was somewhat a reflection of the carnage that’s been happening on the field of play for the Seleção. Argentina captain Lionel Messi and goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez were seen trying to intervene as the Brazilian police clashed with Argentina fans in violent scenes in the stands, before the 2026 World Cup qualifier between the two most successful South American nations. The match between the two neighbouring rivals was delayed by 30 minutes because of the fighting. And on the pitch itself, Brazil, the nation synonymous with sumptuous football and success, may have hit an all-time low.

After their first six games of the campaign, Brazil are sixth in the South American World Cup qualifying group table for the 2026 tournament, hosted by Mexico, USA and Canada. They have lost half of the games they’ve played, and are two points behind Venezuela, who are 49th in the FIFA world rankings. The loss to their bitter rivals Argentina was, incredibly, the first home World Cup qualifier Brazil have ever lost in their entire history. And now even if they were to win the tournament in 2026, it would be Brazil's joint longest wait to be World champions.

What’s going wrong for Brazil?

Tite’s Brazil were unbeaten in the 17 games they played in the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but this time around, under Fernando Diniz, they have already lost three of their first six games. The five-time World Cup winners have been defeated in three consecutive matches to Uruguay, Colombia and Argentina, following a 1-1 draw with Venezuela. They have played a 4-2-3-1 formation in five of those six games.

Full-backs have proved to be an area of weakness for Brazil. Diniz has experimented with Renan Lodi, Guilherme Arana and Carlos Augusto at left-back and Emerson Royal, Danilo, and Yan Couto at right-back, with no one making the position their own. That's more full-backs than Brazil used in the entire qualification campaign for the 2022 World Cup. And it’s been a similar issue up front - since the opening 5-1 win against Bolivia in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil have scored just three goals. Richarlison started the first three fixtures as striker, with Gabriel Jesus playing twice up top, and Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo sharing the striker duty against Colombia - none of those players have scored a single goal while leading the line.

Full Player Comparison

Area manager for Transfermarkt in Brazil, Marcos Watts, tells us more about this current Brazil team and why they are failing to live up to expectation, “The feeling in Brazil right now regarding the national team is uncertainty, and their current situation is a mess. No player has shown the ability to lead the team when Neymar is away. Neither mentally nor technically. Without Neymar, Brazil seem lost, not knowing what to do or whom to give the ball to in moments of high tension. Vinicius and Rodrygo are 'next in line' for obvious reasons, but neither of them have quite met the expectations of becoming the team's new leader - maybe because they're too young, maybe they just don't have it in them - only time will tell.”

The current management of Brazil is a big talking point with Diniz running operations with both the national team and Brazilian Serie A team and Copa Libertadores champions Fluminense. Diniz is standing in as interim manager, before it’s expected that Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti will take the reins next year. Watts believes this was the wrong decision; “Almost everyone expected either a big international name like Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Ancelotti or a top local manager like Abel Ferreira to take over after Tite left. When CBF (Brazilian football federation) announced that Ancelotti would become Brazil's new manager, but only in 2024, you could see lots of different opinions spark around that subject. Some thought it's insane to talk about five-time world champions waiting more than a year for a manager.

"After six games, only the most loyal and hopeful Diniz supporters are still backing him. Most people believe that CBF's strategy is already backfiring, especially with Ancelotti saying multiple times that he has ‘nothing agreed’ with Brazil. In my personal opinion, Diniz was probably not the right man for the job - as an interim. His style of play is far too different from Ancelotti's. I believe the right strategy would have been to either give him the "full-time" manager role, or to push Ancelotti into making a decision to join Brazil in 2023, or at least send an assistant manager before him - who could work closely with him and start implementing his tactics.”

Brazil’s most valuable players

Brazil’s poor displays in qualification do not reverberate with their squad value. Their current squad market value of €1.1b is the third highest in the world. Real Madrid superstar Vinicius is the most valuable player with a market value of €150m. He’s joined by club team mate Rodrygo in second with a market value of €100m, with Bruno Guimarães (Market value: €85m) Gabriel Martinelli (MV: €80m) and Jesus (MV: €75m) completing the top five. With an average age of just 25.3, Brazil currently have the youngest squad of all the South American nations, highlighting that they are currently in a period of transition, and it may take time to reach the lofty heights expected with the football obsessed nation.