It’s no coincidence that five of the 16 teams that qualified for the Copa Libertadores second round are Brazilian, writes Tim Vickery of SI.com. Brazilian teams have dominated the South American competition over the last few years, and aside from the shock first-round exit of Internacional, last year’s champion, things have gone according to plan for the country’s representatives.
2005 champ Sao Paulo qualified along with fellow powerhouses Gremio (the former club of Ronaldinho), Santos (ex-club of Real Madrid’s Robinho), Flamengo and the minnows from Curitiba and Parana, whose appearance in the final 16 underscores the relative strength in the Brazilian game, writes Vickery. Why? Because teams from small Brazilian cities like Curitiba are moving on while clubs with more established pedigrees like River Plate of Buenos Aires have failed to qualify.
It also comes down to size, says Vickery. Brazilian players, on average, are just plain taller than their counterparts from places like Peru, Mexico and Chile. Witness the number of goals in the air scored by Brazilian clubs during the group phase. As the great Brazilian center forward Tostao (now one of the great Brazilian soccer writers) says, “In the past, the great difficulty that Brazilian teams had against the Europeans was the size and physical condition of their players. Today, this problem no longer exists.” He points out the shift in Brazil’s game has resulted in more Brazilian exports to Europe than ever before.