Copa Libertadores quarterfinals. The table was formed: five Brazilian clubs, three Argentines. Out Boca and River, out Uruguayans, Colombians, Paraguayans, Chileans, Ecuadorians… The previous year, Brazilian soccer had achieved the record of qualifying five representatives in the quarterfinals, this time it was close to placing six, finally Fortaleza fell to Estudiantes. Will the champion be Brazilian again like in the last three years…? Since the beginning of the new millennium there have been 22 editions of Libertadores with this distribution: 10 conquered Brazil (45.45%), 8 Argentina (36.36%), 2 Colombia (9%) and one each Paraguay (4.5 %) and Ecuador (4.5%). The others, nor the crumbs.
In the Copa Sudamericana “barely” four Brazilians appear among the eight finalists. In this competition, Pelé’s sons were not dominant, it is not clear if it was because they could not or because they were not interested. But now they also dominate it and began to do Olympic laps. Argentine soccer continues to be at the top in the history of both tournaments (25 to 21 in Libertadores and 9 to 5 in Sudamericana), the question is, until when…?
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The hegemony of the Brazilians
The supremacy of the five-time world champions is accentuating year after year and the rest of the continent looks scared: When will this stop…? Will we have a chance to win a Cup in a short time…? Palmeiras comes from being a two-time champion and is approaching another crown, in eight presentations he achieved eight victories with 33 goals for and 3 against. Even the word impressive is small. Flamengo scored seven goals against Tolima, considered the best Colombian team in the last five years. In South America, the modest Ceará won the 8 games played, with 22 goals for and 2 against. And among those victories are two over the King of Cups, Independiente.
If the Brazilian teams are crowned again in both contests, next year they will again have 9 places in Libertadores and it will be very difficult to beat them again. Because to power must be added the number. One can fall, two, three, nine already seems impossible. It should always be remembered that, while in other nations there are two or three large cadres (Peñarol and Nacional, Olimpia and Cerro, Colo Colo, Universidad de Chile and Católica), in Brazil there are twelve with that label.: Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco and Botafogo for Rio, Corinthians, Palmeiras, São Paulo and Santos among the Paulistas, Gremio and Inter in Porto Alegre, Cruzeiro and Atlético in Belo Horizonte. And there are always the emerging ones, the Athletico Paranaense, the Ceará, the Bahía… The Brazilian clubs slept for decades in the international field and let the others do, now they are voracious for the cups.
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What is the reason for such superiority…? First: never forget football, we are talking about the number one country in the world in football throughout history. He had, has and will always have quality and quantity of players (perhaps he has not generated coaches of such class as footballers). Then there is a strong economic reason: the budgets that are managed in Jorge Amado’s homeland are infinitely higher than those of his neighbors for a simple reason: it is a market of 217 million inhabitants, the same as all the other countries of South America combined .
“The Copa do Brasil, the second most important tournament in the country, brings in 14 million dollars to the champion”, illustrates Jorge Luiz Rodrigues, a journalist from Rio de Janeiro who has covered several World Cups. And he adds: “In turn, the Brazilian Series A Championship distributes a lot of money. Television rights are sold through three channels: open TV, which is held by Globo; cable, which are from SporTV, and the pay-per-view system, whose contract is with Premiere. For the three concepts, Flamengo and Corinthians, the two most popular, receive about 200 million reais for each edition, almost 40 million dollars”.
Then there are the international royalties for foreign countries that receive the Brasileirão matches. And finally, the states. “The Paulista is the strongest, then the Carioca. TV Record holds the rights for the open system and the games are also shown on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Before entering Record, Globo paid almost 25 million dollars for the entire Paulista tournament. In the other states, less “.
And although Jorge Luiz does not mention it, there is the income from the Conmebol cups. Palmeiras received 28,550,000 dollars for obtaining the Libertadores 2021. And sponsorships must be added to these concepts. Crefisa, a financial entity, pays around 20 million dollars to Palmeiras for putting his name on the shirt. And, in addition, marketing, company fees, ticket offices…
“Flamengo and Palmeiras have many paying members, not as much as Boca (N. del A.: the Argentine club passed 300,000), but both exceed 130,000,” reports Jorge Luiz. And collections are another important resource factor. Flamengo registers an average attendance of 50,000 spectators, very high. The same thing happens with Corinthians”.
Precisely on Friday, Globoesporte published an article by Guilherme Maniaudet and Leandro Silva in which they report: “Corinthians is the one with the highest billing so far in 2022. In its first twenty home games, it pocketed more than 48 million reais (US$ 9,000). 2 millions)”. “But there is another element of weight in this boom in Brazilian soccer: the work in the training divisions. Is very goodRodrigues says. In the recent São Paulo Junior Soccer Cup, U-20 category, Palmeiras was champion showing some fantastic youth, like Endrick”. Endrick, 15, already has a list of European suitors, including – the main one – Real Madrid.
To exemplify: Boca won the 2021 Argentine Cup in December and received, for that instance, a check for 7.5 million pesos, about 37,878 dollars at the exchange rate of the day. Atlético Mineiro, winner of the 2021 Copa do Brasil, obtained 11 million dollars (in total for the five phases). Independiente Petrolero won the 2021 Bolivian championship with a budget of $970,000 for the entire season. The differences are abysmal. One estimate reflects that Palmeiras far exceeded $100 million in revenue the previous year. Such a volume of money allows them to sign or keep the best footballers on the continent, which translates into an almost insulting dominance in the international field. And added to the other factors mentioned above, they make a combo almost impossible to beat. The only ones who have managed to come out at the crossroads and snatch some laurels from them, with ingenuity, grit and not a little ability, have been the Argentine teams. Boca deserved much better luck against Corinthians.
The physiognomy of Brazilian football has changed, nothing remains of the beautiful game, it is now a powerful, energetic, physical style, with a lot of branding and defensive care. The technique continues, although there are no longer Garrinchas. But that’s another argument.
There is no indication today that this X-ray will look any different in the near future.
JORGE BARRAZA
SPECIAL FOR WEATHER@JorgeBarraza OK
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