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Hard to imagine Big Phil Scolari or any other competent manager for that matter, failing at Chelsea, where there is the money - of Roman Abramovich - to burn.
Just how Big Phil will have his expansible team playing and who knows how many famous new few will be in blue next season, is a matter of some conjecture. He has, we know, won a World Cup, but those naive followers who have praised that team's dazzling football are short on facts; or memory.
The truth is, and I was there, that the Brazilians began the tournament with unusually negative tactics. It was only when the brilliant combination of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho had their way that the Brazilians began to play the exciting, adventurous football for which they are famed.
When Scolari managed Gremio in Brazil, he was notorious for advising his players to commit minor fouls well away from the penalty box, to break up opposing attacks. And though his present Portuguese team - inspired by Ronaldo, but hardly solid in defence, have played some pleasing football in the current European Championship, they hardly looked inspirational in the 2006 World Cup, where much of their football was cautious.
They had laboured to beat England, somewhat dubiously on penalties in that torrid quarterfinal of Euro 2004 in Lisbon and lost twice to the eventual champions Greece.
I still believe Abramovich was wrong to sack Jose Mourinho, on whom Avram Grant was never going to be an improvement. Mourinho has now found a greatly gainful employment at Inter. However, there has been a lot of misplaced sympathy, in my view, for Grant over his dismissal.
String of disappointments
But however close Chelsea came to success in the Champions League final, it must be remembered that they crashed humiliatingly out of the FA Cup at humble Barsley, flopped against Spurs in the League Cup Final at Wembley and gave hostages to fortunes against Manchester United in Moscow.
Coming back to Euro 2008, "If the law says that," wrote Charles Dickens, "then the law is an ass." And what an ass the crazily amended offside law looked when The Netherlands scored that ultra offside goal against Italy. When the ball reached Ruud Van Nistelrooy in the Italian box, he was yards offside.
Goodness knows that recent glosses of the offside law, over whether or not a man in an offside position is interfering with the play, have made things bewildering enough even for the most experienced managers.
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