PELE HAS HIT out at Brazil coach Dunga for his reluctance to field creative players and believes the Selecao have fallen behind countries such as Argentina and Chile when it comes to playing beautiful football.
Brazil were hammered 7-1 by Germany in the semi-finals of the 2014 World Cup, before crashing out of the Copa America in the quarter-finals at the hands of Paraguay a year later, and Pele feels recent results offer proof they no longer set the benchmark.
“I am sad just talking about it. I cried watching that game [the 7-1 loss to Germany] and not just because of the score. I cried because I do not know what happened to the joy of Brazilian football,” Pele told ESPN .
“Maybe this summer in the Olympics and Copa America, we can remind the world of how Brazil plays soccer, but it will not be easy. I fear we have lost our way.
“There is no flair. Other South American countries like Argentina, Chile and Ecuador now play more beautiful soccer than Brazil and you see what happens in the last two Copa Americas. We lose to Paraguay on penalties.
“Myself, Gerson, Rivelino and Tostao were all No. 10s and yet [then coach Mario] Zagallo wanted us all on the field at the same time so he created a formation that could accommodate us. Then in Japan [at the 2002 World Cup], we had Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo who all had great flair and we won again.
“But today we have a coach who doesn’t care about individual expression. Neymar cannot do it alone. You saw what happened in the World Cup when he couldn’t play against Germany.”
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Well i think most people can understand that, i would back mickey harte to the hilt in any argument against RTE. I heard the skit and was shocked at the time, the guy that did it is just not funny.
Rte are muppets.
I agree with the 2 previous comments. John Murray has a smugness about him that reminds me of his predecessor on Radio 1 who has since gone on to ‘bigger and better things’
Murray is a muppet. His attempts at humour are pathetic. I switch off in the morning as soon as the news is over. Sadly there is a dearth of talent at RTE. Perhaps lowering salaries to appropriate levels might remove the smugness?
John Murray (who makes nice bobs on the side when RTE buy shows; like the recent Charlie Bird excursion to the South Pole, which he was involved in producing), is woefully ill suited to what he is doing now. He’s as funny as a broken leg in a marathon. Like Mooney in the afternoon, his signature tune has me reaching for the next station within nanoseconds.
He is a current affairs man, and that’s it. Des Cahill is a colour reporter, not a snorting ill prepared sports correspondent with stilted delivery and a jarring manner. Pat Kenny is a well briefed incisive and thorough interviewer, who happens to be devoid of spontaneous persona, so they gave him a talk show for eleven years, at the bones of three quarters of a million for each of those years. Tubridy is a vacuous, bubble dwelling non entity, who only came to life in recent times when Fianna Fail were mentioned, and now he’s numero uno, and falling fast. Duffy was a vox pop guy, who was anointed by Gaybo, beyond his talents, and now makes the Lahvline his own personal soapbox, treating callers with sheer bad manners, abruptness, and sighing condescension.
The late Gerry Ryan, who drove me cracked with his on air consumption of any passing foodstuffs, his constant plugs for Harry Crosbie and his other buddies (in exchange for freebies of course), and his arrogance, had, despite all those failings, more charm, and more personality than the whole flippin’ lot put together.
He was probably one of the only on air personalities in that institution, (with the exception of a fair chunk of the news team, Morning Ireland et al.) who wasn’t promoted beyond their station, as it were.
RTE is a living breathing example of the Peter Principle, with a healthy dash of nepotism.
Rte should be shut down
What a choice of song…idiots. What planet are they on. John murrays show is scripted and produced, there’s more than him to blame. And who leaked the contents of the private and confidential letter received by Rte? The postman?! The cleaner?? Professor plum in the library with the candlestick??!
All GAA players should boycott RTE this weekend and send the smug fcukers a clear message.
Ryan, with respect Gerry Ryan most certainly was promoted outside of his own show…secrets, school around the corner, Ryan confidential, operation transformation and on and on. Rte seem to use the same handful of bores to do everything! But leaking a letter and handing a "satirical" script to John Murray of all people to read out??? What planet were they on. Did they think people would turn on the hugely respected Mickey Harte instead of them??? Eejits.
Oh, I quite agree, Jaynie. I wouldn’t be looking at him with rose tinted specs or anything :) I remember The School Around The Corner too!
But my point remains that his bread and butter, the morning slot on 2fm, despite the faults I bored ye all with, had far more individuality attached than John Murray’s efforts.
His producer would want to be…I won’t say what, but as you allude to, there is a large and bloated degree of support behind the guy or gal on the mic, especially and almost exclusively wrt RTE, and it’s ridiculous that none of them had the skill or the cop on to say, “Hang on a second!”
Very insensitive, I’m a Dublin gaa supporter and it’s true to say we are like one big family.its very upsetting what the Harte family and John went through.shame on ya RTE.if I wasn’t going to the game tomorrow I wouldn’t bother watching it on tv.
‘One big ‘family” – when the footballers play Croker is always full (or nearly so) , when the hurlers have a game never more than half full. Lots of ‘family’ members don’t do their duty when the caman is involved.
Mickey Harte has had a tragic year, and in the face of all that stress he still pushes forward his beloved Tyrone to greater heights. The sketch was insensitive for sure, and would understandably have annoyed Harte at this time. It isn’t fair, however, to paint all of RTÉ as ‘muppets’ – this is an organisation made up of many individuals – doing their best and, more often than not, doing a great job. The problem with comment sites like these, I find, is that the negative voice is quite often the only one that bothers with being heard. John Murray is a fine presenter, so is Mooney etc… Not perfect, but who is?
Totally agree with you there, wouldn’t exactly call him a natural! In such bad taste! Did not one person on the team say…hang on a minute…maybe not the best choice of song…oh and probably best not to skit about the private and confidential letter our boss leaked, sorry, I mean received