58 Tuesday May 24 2022 | the timesSportFootball
5NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGESSteve Clarke, the Scotland manager, has
rubbished suggestions that Ukraine will
be unprepared or resigned to defeat
when the sides meet in the World Cup
play-off semi-final at Hampden next
week.
The tie will be loaded with emotion
because it is Ukraine’s first competitive
match since the country was invaded by
Russia in February. Ukraine’s 16 home-
based players were given permission to
leave the country for a training camp inUkraine will be prepared for World Cup play-off, warns Clarke
Slovenia, where they have been since
the end of April. They are being joined
this week by stars such as the Manches-
ter City full back Oleksandr Zinchenko,
the West Ham United winger Andriy
Yarmolenko and the Benfica striker
Roman Yaremchuk.
The former Ukraine and Dynamo
Kyiv player Viktor Leonenko, now a
television pundit, claimed that in the
circumstances it would be nearly
impossible for them to win at Hamp-
den, but Clarke was having none of that.
“We’ll not be paying attention to any ofthat talk whatsoever,” he said. “It’s good
we are playing. We wanted the game to
go ahead, no one wanted anyone to get
a bye or to not play the match. It’s good
they’ve had the chance to get out of the
country and some of them have been in
a training camp for a few weeks.
“They [the players at their camp]
have been playing with Shakhtar
Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv. They have
another nine or ten boys from around
Europe who will join them. They will
have a good camp. They will be 100 per
cent ready, just as we will be. Everyoneis saying they will be so motivated but I
think you’ll find our lads will be
motivated to get to Qatar as well.”
The tie was originally scheduled for
March 24 but was postponed by Fifa
and Uefa. Clarke has named a 28-man
squad for the Ukraine match and, Scot-
land hope, the play-off final against
Wales in Cardiff four nights later. Kier-
an Tierney, the Arsenal left back, is out
and recovering after knee surgery in
April. Billy Gilmour rolled his ankle in
Norwich City’s penultimate Premier
League game but will be fine to play.Michael Grant Scotland squad
Goalkeepers: Z Clark (St Johnstone), C Gordon
(Hearts), L Kelly (Motherwell), D Marshall
(Hibernian).
Defenders: L Cooper (Leeds), G Hanley
(Norwich), J Hendry (Club Bruges), A Hickey
(Bologna), S McKenna (Nottingham Forest),
S O’Donnell (Motherwell), N Patterson (Everton),
A Ralston (Celtic), A Robertson (Liverpool),
J Souttar (Rangers), G Taylor (Celtic).
Midfielders: S Armstrong (Southampton),
L Ferguson (Aberdeen), B Gilmour (Chelsea),
R Jack (Rangers), J McGinn (Aston Villa),
C McGregor (Celtic), S McTominay (Manchester
United), D Turnbull (Celtic).
Forwards: C Adams (Southampton), J Brown
(Stoke), R Christie (Bournemouth), L Dykes
(QPR), R Stewart (Sunderland).I
n a World Cup year the Brazil
national team coach would be
expected to cash in from TV
commercials. But ahead of his
second Fifa tournament as Brazil
boss, Adenor Bacchi — better known
as Tite — is trying to keep his profile
as low as possible. He has even turned
down invitations to take part in the
tenth anniversary celebrations of the
pinnacle of his career: winning the
2012 Fifa Club World Cup with
Corinthians after beating Chelsea, a
feat no club outside Europe has
repeated.
“I want to do as few testimonials
and interviews as possible”, the 60-
year-old says, sitting in his office at
the Brazilian FA (CBF) headquarters
in Rio de Janeiro. Tite wants to turn
the page from 2018, when his good
manners and positivity — think an
old-fashioned Jürgen Klopp — filled
Brazilians with such hope that many
wanted him to go into politics.
Then came Brazil’s elimination in
the quarter-finals at the hands of
Belgium and the inescapable hunt for
a scapegoat that every football
country knows so well. Tite faced the
backlash as a nation grew sick and
tired of the very same qualities that
had inspired it.
“This is how football in Brazil
works”, he says. “From euphoria to
the abyss with no stops in between”.
He seems to enjoy life out of the
spotlight, focusing only on keeping an
eye on the 50 or so players in the
frame for his World Cup squad. He
seems calm as he reflects on the
amount of tested and proven talents
at his disposal. And, in the
Champions League final, he may see
seven of his potential players on the
pitch: Alisson Becker, Fabinho (injury
permitting) and Roberto Firmino for
Liverpool; Éder Militão, Casemiro,
Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo for Real
Madrid.
“Last Tuesday, we video-called
Firmino before his match against
Southampton [which Liverpool wonnational manager, Tite had only
17 matches before the first game in
Russia and a string of injuries plagued
some of the key players, such as Dani
Alves (who could not go to the
tournament), Neymar and Douglas
Costa, and also those on the bench
such as Fred and Danilo (the
Juventus right back).
“Now if we lose one player, we have
two ready-made alternatives at least
in each position,” adds Cléber Xavier,
the third assistant to the manager.
Tite admits he was initially
unaware of Raphinha, whose 11 goals
helped Leeds United escape from
relegation. “The scouting staff came
to me saying, ‘Have a look at this lad,
we have been scouting him closely.’ I
was not paying much attention, but
they insisted, ‘Look at his numbers!’
Then we phoned [Marcelo] Bielsa and
he gave us information that
supported the conclusions. His
quality is impressive.”
This accumulation of talent, Tite
insists, is not a problem when it
comes to Neymar, even if his season
with Paris Saint-Germain flattered to
deceive in Europe once again. The
manager recalls a video-call with
Neymar and Marquinhos in which he
told them to chill out, right after their
elimination against Real in the last 16.
Tite likes listening to his players and
will use Neymar differently with
Brazil compared to Mauricio
Pochettino’s PSG. Instead of having
him track back in defence, Tite wants
Neymar to play centrally with more
freedom.
“He is no longer a winger, as he
used to be at Barcelona. He must be
physically and tactically preserved so
that he can have his genius’s flashes
to shoot or create.”inspiration, he spent two weeks in
Madrid, observing Ancelotti’s
balanced style.
The former Chelsea and Everton
head coach explained his ideas to
Tite, even allowing him to watch
detailed training sessions. Since then,
their exchange of ideas has continued.
Tite’s Brazilian technical staff also
have close bonds with Liverpool,
through Klopp’s assistant Pepijn
Lijnders and goalkeeping coach
Cláudio Taffarel, who mentors
Alisson for club and country. Tite says
the dialogue benefits both sides.
That’s why in March he
emphatically denied a rumour that he
was in talks with Arsenal to replace
Mikel Arteta, to whom he apologised
in a press conference right after a
Brazilian TV station had broken the
news. “That was a lie, and an attack
on everything I have built in my
career. I have never behaved like that,
I sleep well when I go to bed at night.
Furthermore, it is embarrassing,
because we are the ones who will be
talking to Arteta’s staff.”
According to Tite, another player toimprove as a result of this club and
country collaboration is Manchester
United’s Fred. “He overcame a serious
injury, and kept growing in a team
with many hardships,” he says.
Matheus also remembers that they
encouraged Fred to attack more
when playing for Brazil, something he
was asked to avoid at United so that
Scott McTominay could go forward:
“But he enjoyed playing like that with
us. Then we told him to talk to his
club. Incidentally, he began to stand
out with Manchester United when he
assumed a more aggressive role.”
For the friendly matches against
South Korea and Japan next month,
besides Vinícius, Rodrygo and the
inevitable Neymar, the Premier
League will be well represented with
13 players, four of them being
forwards: Gabriel Jesus (Manchester
City), Gabriel Martinelli (Arsenal),
Richarlison (Everton) and Raphinha
(Leeds United). Tite regards the
current scenario as far better than the
2018 edition in Russia.
“I am very pleased with it. We have
fast players to deploy on both sides.
These are forwards with loads of
speed, ability and technical qualities,
which help us not only tactically, but
also in strategic terms, with five
substitutions permitted.”
On the left, Tite continues, there is
Vinícius, then Martinelli or even
Rodrygo as options. He also points
out the different characteristics
among his forwards. “Richarlison
wants to get the ball ahead for him to
score, not to pass and receive. So we
have variations that were tested on
the pitch, something we didn’t have
back in Russia,” he explains.
In addition to the few training
sessions which are a constant for any‘I would cap Saka for Brazil’
When asked which England player
he would cap for his team if
possible, Tite gives a quick answer:
“I would go with [Arsenal’s Bukayo]
Saka, who finished this Premier
League season with 11 goals.
“I have a soft spot for fast, skinny
legs. And he is the kind of player
that you can never control. You may
well try to pressure him, chase him
wherever he goes, but you’ll never
fully control his actions.”Firmino remains in contention for Tite’s World Cup squad later this year despite falling down the Liverpool pecking order‘I wanted to
look Firmino
in the eyes’
Brazil manager Tite tells
Márvio dos Anjos about
how he checks in on his
stars ahead of Saturday’s
Champions League final
2-1], because you’ve got to look in his
eyes in this kind of talk. He was
focused on his match, so we called
him to let him know that we have
been following him, that we know
how skilled he is.
“We must encourage at least 50
players in and out of Brazil to keep
working harder.”
One of the Brazil team since July
2021, when Argentina won the Copa
América 1-0 in the Maracanã
Stadium, Firmino is just one of Tite’s
many motivational meetings. Another
is Real Madrid’s “Vini Jr”, a
continuous presence in yellow and
green since September 2019, with 12
matches; he is arguably the biggest
success story of the manager’s spell.
Tite showed a clear early
preference for Vinícius’s Real team-
mate Rodrygo, whose double knocked
Manchester City out of the
Champions League. The manager’s
hesitance towards the 21-year-old
Vinícius was mostly due to his poor
finishing. Now the Brazil coach is
firmly convinced that Vinícius will be
a key player in his line-up in Qatar.
And he is keen to share the credit for
the player’s improvement.
“He needed to turn his awesome
speed and ability into goals and he
succeeded. So it’s to his credit and
[Real Madrid manager Carlo]
Ancelotti’s,” Tite says, also explaining
the role of his 33-year-old son and
assistant, Matheus, who is in charge
of using a language “closer to Vini’s
generation” to approach him.
Matheus says that the staff assured
Vinícius that he had their confidence,
telling him from the very beginning
he didn’t need to be a star. He only
needed to focus on improving.
“Vini understood it was an ongoing
process. He needed to know that
being on the bench did not mean we
were dumping him. We kept pushing
for precision in his shots, urging him
first to nail the goal before developing
other skills on his finishes”, Matheus
says. “Then we worked on his
offensive and defensive movement.
The moment he started to get more
understanding at his club, when
Ancelotti arrived, he started to
flourish.”
The connection between Tite and
Ancelotti dates back to the Italian’s
first spell at the Bernabeu. In 2014,
when the Brazil manager took a
sabbatical year looking for