Moving goalposts: how Brazil's football team lost its mojo

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  The Economist. Hi there, it's Jason Palmer here,

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  co-host of The Intelligence, our daily news and current affairs podcast.

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  This is Editor's Picks.

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  Enjoy.

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  On June 10th, Brazil's national football team won a match.

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  Unremarkable, you might think, for the most successful team to play the game.

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  Yet the mood afterwards in Brazil was unfamiliar, sour relief.

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  In beating Paraguay, a football pipsqueak, the team had managed just one goal.

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  The victory did qualify Brazil for the 2026 World Cup,

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  but only three months after arch-rival Argentina had already become a mathematical certainty to do the same.

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  Brazil's team is set to qualify third in its group behind Puni,

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  Ecuador, having suffered a humiliating thrashing by Argentina in a qualification match in March.

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  This decline is not recent.

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  The Celso or National Squad has not won a World Cup in more than 20 years,

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  having done so a record five times in the five decades to 2002.

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  More than anywhere else, national identity in Brazil is tied to football.

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  Every school child can rattle off the names of Pele,

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  Gahinsha, Ronaldinho, Tostão and Ronaldo the Phenomenon.

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  The International Centre for Sports Studies, a research centre in Switzerland,

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