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9 août 2021

From Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 to Olympic gold : focus on the Brazil’s Olympic cycle

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Over the last two years, the Brazil Olympic team work hard to defend their title. It proved to be successful as the Seleçao clinched last Saturday the gold medal. Let’s take a look at the cycle initiated by the Brazilian Football Federation (Confederação Brasileira de Futebol) in order to earn the Olympic gold, with the Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 as the starting point.

“The Maurice Revello Tournament is the first step for the Olympics, it’s everybody’s dream to go to Tokyo”. While Brazil just won the Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 against Japan (1-1, 5-4 pen) on this 15th June 2019, the Sao Paulo winger Antony (now playing at Ajax Amsterdam) was already projecting himself on the Olympic event which was supposed to be played by the Seleçao one year later.

This sentence from Antony was meaningful as the Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 was targeted by the Brazilian Football Federation (Confederação Brasileira de Futebol), and this was then repeated publicly by the CBF several times, as the starting point of the Olympic cycle which was expected to lead the Seleçao until the Tokyo Olympics.

Before dreaming about a second Olympic title in a row after the gold medal clinched in 2016, the head coach André Jardine, helped by his staff, worked on instilling a winning mentality inside the Seleçao squad. “Winning the Maurice Revello Tournament was very important. There have been some bad results among the youth teams these last years. It was our responsibility to bring back the Brazil team at the level they belong on the international scene”, said André Jardine following the Maurice Revello Tournament won in June 2019.

A perfect way to start an Olympic cycle which has lasted longer than expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has led to the postponement of many international events including the Olympic Games 2020. So, André Jardine and his staff have had two years (2019 to 2021) instead of one to work on this project : during this period, more than 70 players have been selected and around twenty games have been played.

Eventually, 19 young players from this Olympic cycle (accompanied by the overaged players Santos, Diego Carlos and Dani Alves) have been called-up to represent Brazil at the Tokyo Olympics this summer. 7 of them won the Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 : the goalkeeper Luçao, the defender Bruno Fuchs, the midfielders Douglas Luiz and Matheus Henrique as well as forwards Paulinho, Antony and Matheus Cunha.

This well-prepared group has met the expectations : leaders of a group featuring Germany (4-2), Ivory Coast (0-0) and Saudi Arabia (3-1), Brazil earned then a 1-0 win over Egypt in the quarter-finals before beating Mexico (0-0, 4-1 pen) in the semi-finals.

In the final, against Spain (2-1), the Seleçao has been able to rely on two Maurice Revello Tournament graduates to clinch the title : Matheus Cunha netted the opener while Antony provided a fantastic assist for Malcom to score the winner.

 
 
 
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Une publication partagée par Matheus Cunha (@mathcunha_)

Brazilians can celebrate : a two-year-work programme has been rewarded by an Olympic medal. “This is the culmination of a work taken very seriously by the CBF. The institution was aware of the responsibility to defend the gold medal, organized itself and provided us all the required structure with the Maurice Revello Tournament 2019 as the starting point”, told André Jardine last Saturday at the Yokohama Stadium after the Olympic Games final against Spain.

After Great Britain (1908, 1912), Uruguay (1924, 1928), Hungary (1964, 1968) and Argentina (2004, 2008), Brazil became the fifth nation in the history to win two successive Olympic tournaments.

Amayes Brahmi

Photo credits : CBF Futebol

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