World Cup winners Brazil still in limbo

World champions Brazil have announced their programme for the next year -- all they need now is a coach to pick some players and a few more opponents.

The Brazilian Football Confederation said on Thursday that their team will play two friendlies in the first half of next year and confirmed the five-times World Cup winners will take part in the Confederations Cup in France in May.

But there are still no clues as to who the new coach will be -- nor when he will be named.

The CBF are almost certain to appoint an interim coach for the friendly away to South Korea on November 20 but even this short-term post is shrouded in mystery.

Brazilian media have speculated that the CBF are attempting to persuade Luis Felipe Scolari to return for one final game, having already kept him on for a friendly against Paraguay in August when Brazil slumped to an embarrassing 1-0 defeat.

If "Big Phil" turns down the offer, the CBF could turn to one of their former coaches -- possibly 70-year-old Mario Zagallo who led the team at the 1970 and 1998 World Cups -- and offer him the match by way of a tribute.

The long-term coach is even more of a mystery and is likely to depend upon who does well in the Brazilian championship, which ends in December.

Current favourites include Carlos Alberto Parreira, who led Brazil to the World Cup title in 1994 and now coaches Corinthians, and Vanderlei Luxemburgo, who has already had one unsuccessful stab at the job.

TAX RETURNS

Luxemburgo's reputation was tarnished, however, after he was sacked two years ago amid allegations of improper conduct and subsequently grilled by a Congressional investigation over his tax returns, while Parreira may not even want the job at all.

Brazil have pencilled in another friendly for December, for which they will then have to name yet another coach, while the opposition and venue are also up in the air.

Similarly, the CBF has set aside February 12 and April 30 as dates for friendlies without announcing who Brazil will play.

Without a coach, the team itself is also a mystery.

Does the new coach simply start off with the World Cup winning team? Does he attempt to phase in some new players? Or does he dismantle the whole team and start again from scratch?

IMPROVISATION

Nobody can tell and there is not going to be much chance for team-building until early next year.

Yet Brazil have already experienced the dangers of improvisation.

Only last year, they crashed to a series of unprecedented defeats against teams such as Australia, Honduras, Ecuador and Bolivia after chopping and changing their team.

Scolari's successful side was only formed in the weeks before the World Cup.

The South American qualifiers, which need to fit into the FIFA calendar, could start as early as next August, giving the next incumbent precious little time to decide on his team for a tournament which is strewn with pitfalls.

Brazil, which produces an endless stream of talented players, has plenty of promising youngsters including Santos teenagers Diego and Robinho.

But they desperately need time and experience in the famous gold shirt and the pressures that go with it.

Scolari has already warned his successor that the qualifiers are more difficult than the World Cup itself.

"It will be long and difficult again," said Scolari recently. "Brazil's big difficulty is that they have never learned how to play qualifiers.

"We need a change of thinking. To face a three-year qualifying competition and get the players motivated for every game will be an arduous task for the coach."