Cafu after Brazil’s World Cup exit: it’s not the end of the world

Brazil’s FIFA World Cup wound has reopened and for Cafu the cure won’t just be found in tactics, systems or some other forensic search for scapegoats. It can start with something much simpler: letting kids kick a ball without feeling the weight of a nation on their little shoulders.

A day after Brazil’s harrowing 2-1 defeat by Norway in the last 16 at the New York/New Jersey Stadium, where Erling Haaland scored twice to send home the record five-time champions, the captain of Brazil’s 2002 World Cup-winning side said the country must rely on coach Carlo Ancelotti with a good rebuild in four years.

Brazil’s wait for a sixth title will now be at least 28 years, longer than any barren period in its history. Cafu, who was part of the squad that ended a 24-year drought in 1994, knows what that number does to a Brazil shirt.

“Even bigger,” he told Reuters on Monday when asked what pressures awaited the next generation. “If there was pressure in ’94 after 24 years, now imagine it in 2030, after 28 years.”

Responsible for unveiling an 8.47-meter-long LEGO sculpture of the World Cup, made up of more than 1.36 million LEGO bricks, at Rockefeller Plaza in the heart of New York City, Cafu refused to resort to exaggerations.

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Brazil, he said, remains Brazil, judged by “the potential and caliber of Brazilian football,” and that is precisely why patience will be so difficult and necessary.

“It’s not the end of the world,” he said. «It’s the start of a new cycle and a new generation, so we have to trust that Carlo (Ancelotti) is the man who will help Brazil win that title again.»

ANCELOTTI INHERITED AN EMERGENCY

For Ancelotti, Cafu’s former manager at AC Milan, that cycle begins with time, something Brazil’s chaotic pursuit of the Italian could not offer him before this World Cup. After three agents and administrative turmoil, Cafu said Ancelotti inherited less of a team than an emergency.

“Ancelotti actually came to this World Cup to put out a fire,” said Cafu. “He took over the reins of a ship that was already underway. He tried to right that ship halfway through the voyage… but unfortunately that didn’t work.

«Now he will take the ship while it is docked and be able to set it on its exact course.»

But Cafu’s deeper concerns lie among the national team, in the academies and youth tournaments where Brazil’s old sense of inventiveness, he fears, is being squeezed by the urgency of adults. The country that once produced full-backs who seemed to cover entire flanks with a smile is, he says, muddying the job description.

“Youth teams are not developing full-backs as they should,” he said. “A full-back has to be a full-back; he has to work on the flank.”

More broadly, Cafu believes Brazil has confused development with winning early.

“Today we are not developing players, we are developing competitors,” he said. «If you create a youth program where you are forced to win, you develop competitors; you don’t develop real athletes with creative freedom.»

He recognizes that the romance of street football cannot simply be restored through nostalgia. His own memories belong to a different Brazil: asphalt, bare feet, torn toenails.

«That has changed. It’s not coming back,» he said. “Fortunate were we who survived that time, who lived through that era.”

The task, then, is not to recreate the past, but to preserve something of its spirit within the modern game.

“Let children be children,” Cafu said. “At the age of eight, a child should be playing with a ball, laughing and having fun.”

Then came the simplest coaching manual imaginable.

“It’s like building with Lego,” he said. “You put the pieces together one by one and enjoy it without even noticing that you’re developing a skill.”

Published on July 6, 2026