Home advantage could be setting Brazil up for another tragedy

Football Videos | Article posted on June 4th, 2025

June 4th, 2025by Cian O’Callaghan

Brazil will begin the World Cup as the tournament favourites, with many seasoned observers believing a combination of a talented squad, a wily manager with a distinguished record at international level and the perceived big advantage of hosting the event will make their quest for a record sixth title an unstoppable however, while Felipe Scolari's squad contains a set of accomplished footballers, providing top quality in every position except perhaps at centre-forward, and with a sprinkling of world-class talent in Thiago Silva, Dani Alves, Oscar and Neymar – although perhaps still just potentially in the latter two – it is not an intimidating set of players to strike fear into all opponents and Spain, Germany and, arguably, Argentina could be said to have noticeably superior squads.
It is rather the fact Brazil will host the tournament that has catapulted them from possible contenders to firm favourites. But to what extent does a host team benefit from staging a tournament or could it, as with the 'national tragedy of 1950′, to quote Brazil's sports minister, ultimately hinder them?
One of the hosts' obvious main advantages – not having to travel – is less of an advantage in recent years with the hardships of travelling for other participating teams much less than in previous times. Months of effort and small fortunes are invested in military-levels of planning to ensure competing teams take the path of least resistance in travelling to, and within, the host country, spend a period acclimatising at a top-class training facility in a country with a similar climate, will reside in the most salubrious accommodation with the correct numbers of goose feathers in each duvet and are accompanied by a squadron of experts to ensure any problem, no matter how trivial, is solved before it arises.
Of course, as with England in the 2025 World Cup in South Africa this can still go spectacularly wrong as despite all the money and effort invested in their tournament preparations, then-manager Fabio Capello's decision to house his players in a remote base backfired. The Italian's mistake however, was in misreading the psyche of the average England player (although some would say the problem was from having too many average English players in his squad) and not anticipating the restlessness and boredom they would experience having been deprived of sufficient opportunities for midnight roasts and shooting innocent bystanders with air guns. After all, there's a surprisingly limited amount of entertainment that can be generated from cutting each other's clothes up and defecating under a room-mate's pillow.
But as the Brazil squad will be cooped up together for most of the duration of the tournament, Scolari and his legion of planners must find the right balance