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A match against Panama, whom Brazil face tonight in their penultimate friendly before the World Cup, is bound to stir memories for Luiz Felipe Scolari.
For it was a home friendly against Panama that helped to lift the Brazilians out of their deepest depression, which they little realised would give way to the joy of a fifth world title.
It was August 2001 and Big Phil was their fourth manager in a year. In that time they had lost to, among others, Australia and Honduras, and there was serious concern they might make ignominious history by failing to emerge from the World Cup qualification process.
The last chance to raise morale before the visit of Paraguay — a qualifier Scolari described as “the most important game of my career, the game of my life”— brought the Panamanians to Curitiba, where they were beaten 5-0. A few days later Paraguay were overcome and, although the odd stumble followed, it proved a turning point. Rivaldo burgeoned, Ronaldo returned, Scolari remodelled the team and the following summer in Yokohama they lifted the World Cup.
Remember that side? Gilberto Silva in midfield; Cafu and Roberto Carlos, the best pair of wing-backs ever assembled; Kleberson, who went to Manchester United and disturbed a lot fewer trees than Gilberto was to pull up at Arsenal.
Scolari, hitherto best known in South America — he had guided both Gremio and Palmeiras to Copa Libertadores triumphs — became a global name and, after managing Portugal, ended up, as global names and Avram Grant tend to do, at Chelsea.
It has been less of a roller-coaster ride this time. The team have been bedded in for more than a year and, although there are reservations — the relative inexperience of purportive superstars Neymar and Oscar, for example — Scolari claims almost serene confidence. He’ll not want that dented by Panama.
