Brazil will play a friendly against England at Wembley on Wednesday and while Neymar dismissed the Three Lions as a one-man team (that man being Wayne Rooney), Brazil manager Phil Scolari spoke of his pain over not taking the England job when he had the chance.
In 2006, the year Scolari's Portugal team beat England in a shootout to reach the semifinals of the World Cup, Scoarli was offered the England job and turned it down. From the Independent:
"When I was invited to be national coach I still had a contract with the Portugal national team and I was not willing to break that contract," the 64-year-old admitted. "It was my duty to fulfil that contract. Imagine in 2006 what would have happened if we played together and I already had the contract with the England national team.
"Of course it hurts. It hurt a lot. I would have loved to be manager of the England national team. Who wouldn't? It's a wonderful national team and I hope I will have the opportunity tomorrow to talk to [Frank] Lampard and Ashley Cole, and I wish all the best for the English players and their manager on their path of innovation and who knows, you never know what might happen one day."
Of course, Scolari then went on to become manager of Chelsea for six months starting in the summer of 2008 (and it's worth noting that his record was better than Rafa Benitez's is now). Though Scolari didn't last long before getting sacked by Roman Abramovich, he said, "What I remember about Chelsea is simply marvelous."
And then he started answering questions with his hands...
"How many more games will Rafa Benitez last with Chelsea?"
"How many goals will Neymar score against England?"
"How many times have you watched the Ronaldinho webcam video?"
"How many times a day does Pele call to tell you that Neymar is better than Messi?"
"Can we end with a smile?"
"Perfect."
No comments:
Post a Comment