Dorival Júnior, the coach who wanted to teach Neymar a lesson and ended up fired

In one of the weakest moments of its team in recent decades and after the insult of the Italian Carlo Ancelotti and the dismissal of Fernando Diniz, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) decided to overturn this irregular course of the national team, Dorival Silvestre Juniora highly experienced coach, who has spent his entire career in his country and achieved his most important results in the last two years, when he had already turned 60.

“I prepared a lot for this. I will prepare the team to be successful, to once again be a top-level team in a World Cup that will be very competitive. We are going through a difficult time, but it is not impossible to reverse it quickly“, the coach assured on Thursday during the presentation in Rio de Janeiro. The 61-year-old veteran, who until last week was in charge of San Pablo, will take charge of a team that is sixth in the Conmebol table for the 2026 World Cup and which has lost its last three matches in that competition (against Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina ).

The challenge is, without a doubt, the greatest in the career of this man born 61 years ago in Araraquara, 280 kilometers north-west of San Pablo. But Dorival is not improvised: He has been linked to professional football for more than 40 years and has spent a lifetime orbiting around a ball, since his father was manager of Ferroviária, the most important club in his hometown, and one of his uncles, Olegário Tolói de Oliveira, known as Duduhe was a hero of Palmeiras: he played 615 matches between 1964 and 1976, was three times champion of Sao Paulo and five times champion of Brazil, and won a title as a coach (also, he played in the World Cup 1974 in West Germany with the yellow-green team).

Away from the spotlight of his uncle, Dorival Júnior, who played as a midfielder, He had a modest career as a footballer, which took place partly in the promotion categories. He debuted in 1982 at Ferroviária and retired in 1999 at Botafogo, São Paulo. In those 17 years he also worked for Marília, Guaraní, Avaí, Joinville, São José, Coritiba, Gremio, Juventude and Matonense.

Also at Ferroviária he began his coaching career in 2002. Since then, his resume has accumulated many lines. He led 20 teams, all Brazilians, including nine of the so-called big twelve: Flamengo (three times), Vasco da Gama, San Pablo, Santos (twice for each of these three), Fluminense, Palmeiras, Inter, Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro. To complete that dozen, only Gremio, Corinthians and Botafogo are missing.

In his first experiences on the bench, Dorival Júnior won state titles with Figueirense, Fortaleza, Sport Recife and Coritiba, and won the second division championship with Vasco da Gama in 2009. Subsequently, He was hired by Santos, who then had two young people who were already talking: Paulo Henrique Ganso and Neymar. With the man who is now the Brazilian national team’s all-time top scorer, he was involved in an accident that has come to mind more than once in recent hours.

In his first eight months in office, the coach led that great team of Peixe win the Paulista Championship and the Copa do Brasil (for the first time in its history). Neymar shone, but he also had attitudes that annoyed anyone and everyone. On 15 September 2010, in a match won by Santos 4 to 2 against Atlético Goianiense in Vila Belmiro for the 22nd matchday of the Brasileirão, the attacker refused to pass the ball to some teammates and argued heatedly with the defender Edu Dracena e He ended up insulting Dorival Júnior on the playing fieldwho had not allowed him to take a penalty.

“It is a difficult, serious problem that will require effort from all of us. Every time we witness an act of indiscipline, Whether it’s Neymar or a youth player, we punish. We will have to act the same way.”warned the coach after that match, which excluded the player from the lineup in the duel that his team drew 0-0 against Guaraní four days later.

Seventy-two hours later, Santos were due to face Corinthians and the management wanted Neymar to play. President Luis Álvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro met with Dorival Júnior and agreed with him on the reinstatement of the young man, who was 18 years old at the time. However, after the conclave, The DT announced that the punishment would be extended and claimed to have management approval. The next day, the coach, who had a record of 37 wins, 8 draws and 16 losses with Santos, He was fired. And Ney returned to the team in the 3-2 defeat against Corinthians.

According to Dorival Júnior the event was not as serious as he was credited with. “I have no problem with Ney. The dimension that situation took on was disproportionate. After that match we were already talking. The Santos board made a decision and I respected it.”, he assured in his presentation on Thursday. And he made it clear that he will count on the attacker when he has recovered from the torn anterior cruciate ligament and the two menisci in his left knee suffered in October and for which he had to undergo surgery. “Brazil must learn to play without Neymar, understanding that he is injured at the moment. “He is one of the three best players in the world and then we will count on him.”warning.

That incident with the player who now plays for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal was unusual in the career of a coach who his players describe as calm, flexible and balanced. “He’s very transparent, he organizes great training sessions, I can’t praise him enough”said winger Lucas Moura in these hours, who has coincided with him for the last five months at San Pablo.

The workouts Lucas Moura refers to were something new that Dorival Júnior incorporated into his repertoire just under ten years ago. In March 2015, after a misstep in Palmeiras, he went to Europe to immerse himself in other forms of work. He was in Rome and Madrid before arriving in Munich, where he met Josep Guardiolawho was coaching Bayern at the time.

The coach said that from that trip he had brought with him new training methods and new ideas which he immediately began to apply to his teams. “I started to give more importance to the tactical part, without forgetting the technical part, to help improve Brazilian football”, he explained. Many men who passed through his hands perceived and respected him. “Dorival is the Pep Guardiola of Brazil”said midfielder Thiago Maia, who then played for Santos and now works for Flamengo, in May 2016.

The last two years of the career of the new Brazilian national team driver have been very fruitful. But first he had to face complicated situations. After leaving Flamengo in December 2018, he spent more than a year without working. In that time, Prostate cancer was detected, forcing him to undergo surgery in October 2019. “Cancer made me give another value to life. “I stopped worrying about situations that seem serious, but are actually trivial.”counted in 2020.

He returned to activity at Atletico Paranaense at the beginning of 2020, but after suffering from covid-19 and having his team miss four consecutive matches, He was fired in August of that year.. She subsequently spent another 18 months without directing, as she explained, due to personal difficulties. “I’ve had two difficult years. She had no way of returning to those conditions. I knew he wouldn’t be any good. Now I’m back with the same motivation as before, prepared for a new challenge.”he said in March 2022, when he was hired by Ceará.

With the team from the Northeast he had a brilliant run in the group stage of the Copa Sudamericana: he won his area with a perfect score, with 17 goals for and only 1 against (the best score of a Brazilian team in the history of the competition) . . . After that, He slammed the door unexpectedly and signed a contract with Flamengowho needed a replacement after the dismissal of Portuguese Paulo Sousa.

This decision by Dorival Júnior caused a lot of annoyance in the Ceará management. “Flamengo didn’t communicate with us, they went directly to Dorival. He called me to talk, he said that he had received a proposal, but I think he had already made his decision. There wasn’t much to try to convince him to stay.”complained Robinson de Castro, president of the Fortaleza club.

That third cycle coming in Fla It lasted just five and a half months, but had great success: it won the Copa do Brasil (beating Corinthians in the final) and won the Copa Libertadores thanks to a devastating record in the knockout phase: seven wins in seven games, with 18 goals in favor and two conceded. Despite all this, the management of the Mengao He did not extend the contract. That resolution annoyed many supporters.

His last experience was in San Pablo. He took over in April last year, replacing Rogério Ceni, and in September he won the Copa do Brasil again, beating Flamengo led by Jorge Sampaoli in the final (it was São Paulo’s first consecration in that tournament). Last weekend he said goodbye to take the reins of the teamwhich will lead, in principle, until the 2026 World Cup.

His name had already been in the limelight after the Qatar World Cup and Tite’s departure, but the CBF ended up opting first for Ramon Menezes and then for Fernando Diniz, presumably awaiting the arrival of Carlo Ancelotti. However, the Italian prolonged the serenade and ended up extending his link with Real Madrid. This and the dismissal of Diniz, after the team’s terrible performance in the last few games, They opened the doors to Dorival Júnior. The first matches will be in March, when Brazil will face England and Spain in two friendly matches.