12 March 2010 / REUTERS, TERESOPOLIS, BRAZIL
South Africa coach Carlos Alberto Parreira is hoping his team will learn to play the ‘Brazilian way’ at the World Cup finals after a month-long training camp in his homeland.
Parreira, who brought a squad of 29 to the Brazil team’s Teresopolis training center, said South Africa would play a series of friendlies against club sides to warm up for the World Cup and become imbued with the Brazilian game. “The idea of bringing them here is because this is the cradle of world football,” former Brazil coach Parreira, who steered his country to the fourth of their five world crowns in 1994, said. “Great world champion players with the Brazilian national team have trained here. I want that to act as an inspiration for our players,” he told a news conference. Parreira said South African soccer suffers from the many different styles of their club sides, a reflection of the coaches of a variety of nationalities who work there. “South African football doesn’t have an image, it has several identities, there are trainers from various parts of the world,” he said.
