It has been twenty-four years since Brazil won the World Cup. The last comparable dry spell began after 1970—the year of the heady tricampeonato led by Pelé, Tostão, Rivellino, et al.—and ended in 1994, when Romário, who had joined the team at the last match of the qualifying stage, led the seleção to its fourth title.
That World Cup was won through compromise, or so the story goes. We had lost in 1982 against Italy, with one of our best, most attacking teams; in 1994, we beat them in the final, in a penalty shoot-out, after a nil-nil draw, having suffered only three goals throughout the whole tournament. We beat the Italians at their own game, so to speak, with prudent defending and surgical counterattacking.
Italy may be out of the World Cup for the third time running, but our current coach, Carlo Ancelotti, is Italian, and was hired to coach a Brazil that, bred on years of losing in the quarterfinals, has internalized a self-flagellating logic akin to that of the Azzurri (“We’re too undisciplined! We’ve been left behind tactically! We need to catch up!”). Ancelotti recently complimented Carlos Alberto Parreira, the 1994 Brazil coach, on his understanding of the importance of defense in building a winning squad—a symptom, perhaps, of a barely concealed desire that history somehow repeat itself. After all, Ancelotti’s Real Madrid—twice winners of the Champions League, in 2022 and 2024—are one of the most successful embodiments of the ethos of defending first, then counterattacking to win.
Vinícius Jr., born and raised in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, was one of Real Madrid’s main players during that victorious period. That he did not win the 2024 Ballon d’Or will go down as an obvious and quite ridiculous historical injustice, much like Jorge Luis Borges not having won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Vini’s beginnings at the club, though, were not easy. He arrived there in 2018, at age eighteen, after a €45 million transfer from Flamengo. The high expectations of Madridistas, combined with Vini’s lukewarm relationship with coach Zinedine Zidane, made him the subject of much skepticism in those early years. One of the most frequent criticisms back then was that he was too immature, that he needed to work on the efficiency of his game and the accuracy of his shots on goal.
It is not that these criticisms were wrong, but rather that they were too broad to be informative. Any player at eighteen, even a supremely talented one, will need some polish and experience before performing to his full potential. Vini Jr. played sixty-nine matches for Flamengo before moving on to Europe and, in the matches that I watched, it was precisely his efficiency that struck me: the way he traversed the field so quickly toward the goal, and how easily he melded a street-smart style with a ruthless sense of objectivity. Ancelotti’s arrival at Real Madrid in 2021 is treated as the turning point in Vini Jr.’s career, but there was no great tactical stroke of genius from the Italian—all he really did was give Vini more playing time and arrange the squad a little more around his gifts.
Parreira was stubborn about his vision for the 1994 World Cup until, facing the threat of elimination in the last match of the qualifying stage, he had to swallow his pride and bring on Romário. That match against Uruguay—in which Romário scored twice, sealing the 2–0 victory that guaranteed Brazil’s World Cup ticket—remains the best individual performance I’ve ever seen. What was most remarkable was how Romário understood his protagonism, living up to and even surpassing the extraordinary expectations around him. He carried this attitude throughout the World Cup, scoring five goals and being as decisive as Ronaldo would be in 2002, or Messi in 2022.
The hero of the 1994 tournament, therefore, was a striker, one of the best strikers Brazil ever had. Those who focus on that team’s defensive capabilities tend to skim over this uncomfortable fact. The image of a cautious 1994 squad, one with a rather boring playing style, is at odds with the genius of Romário, present in every single highlight reel. In the end, Parreira had to cave in to his star attacker, in every sense of the word—Romário, according to a recent interview, had a “secret exit” he kept at the training grounds, one that he and other players used for dates and to escape curfews before matches.
Ancelloti and Vini Jr.’s relationship carries none of the tensions that Romário and Parreira’s did; theirs is a harmonious partnership. But one senses that the potential end to Brazil’s dry spell may hinge on how fully Vini Jr. understands, like Romário did, that he is the most important part of the duo, and that theirs is not an equal partnership. (This is, crucially, something Ancelotti has always understood.) Vini’s battles throughout his career—facing those early skeptics in Madrid, or his courageous, relentless fight against widespread racism—have always been about claiming and defending his own identity. In 2026, the seleção’s identity will be at stake, too. Will we hold on to the dubious notion that we need to play cautious, defensive football, only breathing through counterattacks? Or will we be a little more self-forgiving, giving leeway to our team’s offensive nature? Vini Jr. might have the answer.