Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari lamented a “disaster in six minutes” in their World Cup semi-final hammering to Germany but insisted his future would not be decided until after the tournament.
Following their 7-1 mauling in Belo Horizonte Scolari has to lift his players for the third-place play-off on Saturday.
And while he stressed only after that game would his destiny be decided it appears inconceivable the 65-year-old coach who oversaw his country’s biggest defeat since their 1920 6-0 loss to Uruguay, will remain in his post.
“We had a disaster in six minutes but it happened. Let’s work for Saturday’s game,” Scolari, referring to Germany’s four goals in a manic first-half spell, said.
“If I could explain what happened in those six minutes I would answer but I do not know.
“The crash was also the coaching staff, the fans, it was overall, no one understood, and the team from Germany, which is good, took the opportunity. I cannot explain, I will not justify. An error occurred and this error was fatal.
“We can lose by one or two but we lost in a way that we had never done before in the history of Brazilian football. But the tournament was not all bad. We had a bad defeat.
“We (coaching staff) have a deal with the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) until the game on Saturday and after that, probably, we will have a conversation to sort some things out.”
Scolari added preparing his players for their final game of the tournament and not his own future was his primary focus.
“After the World Cup we will submit a report to the board of the CBF where you will see the good and the bad that we did and then it depends on the direction,” he added.
“This is nothing going through my head right now. I will continue with my life, the players will also continue to be winners and we must continue – you can not end the life of the players for it. History will have to record that Brazil, for the first time since 2002, reached the semi-finals.”
Scolari’s assistant Carlos Alberto Parreira said this was now a time to re-examine Brazilian football after admitting Germany were far more advanced in all aspects of the game.
“They have numerous training centres for athletes, for coaches too, and the result was seen here,” said the former national team boss.
“German football is the perfect base and we now have a chance to rethink, revise and invest in better training of athletes.”
