Big Phil looking to bow out on high note

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This article was published 28/10/2022 (1392 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If this is the end, it’s going to take some getting used to.

Because, whether as “Big Phil” or “Felipão” or “Perna-de-Pau” (the nickname “wooden leg”, earned in his underwhelming playing days), world football has known Luiz Felipe Scolari for more than half a century.

He is, of course, synonymous with the 2002 World Cup — Brazil’s fifth and most recent triumph — where he revitalized Ronaldo, nurtured a young Ronaldinho, and hitched his side to a Rivaldo at the peak of his powers.

England fans would no doubt prefer to forget his Portugal teams. And he’d probably like to ignore his seven months at Chelsea. His most cherished accomplishments came at his beloved Grȇmio, where between 1994 and 1996 he won everything there was to win.

Today, in the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil, he’ll oversee what he has hinted will be his last cup final (3:00 p.m., beIN Sports) when his unlikely Athletico Paranaense face favoured Flamengo in the championship of the Copa Libertadores — South America’s Champions League equivalent.

“This career is coming to an end, indeed,” he revealed in an interview with AP on Tuesday. “If we win the Copa Libertadores, it will be the pinnacle of a career for which I worked a lot. I never expected this much, winning all that I have won.”

Expressive without being intense, grandfatherly regardless of age, Scolari has been a sort of futebol patriarch since delivering Brazil’s record title in Yokohama. It’s perhaps too easy to forget that, when he took over the Selecão in the spring of 2001, he became the fourth Brazil boss to have a turn at the wheel during that topsy-turvy qualification campaign.

All told, he was in the job that would define him for barely a year. His second stint with the national team was actually longer, when, as this writer contributed to The New York Times in November 2012, Brazil sought out the embrace of Família Scolari ahead of the World Cup they hosted in 2014.

We know how that ended.

Seeking comfort, Scolari returned to Grȇmio, after which he went off board and won three straight Chinese titles and the AFC Champions League at Guangzhou Evergrande. Rejuvenated, he returned to Brazil and took Palmeiras to the top of Série A in 2018.

“I never dreamed of reaching the Brazilian national team,” he admitted in a Players Tribune article earlier this year. “I always worked for the club, because it was the club that gave me this visibility… Next step. Next team. Next challenge.”

And “next,” probably “last,” for Scolari is a final few envisioned he’d contest — and certainly not with an outfit outside the country’s “big 12.”

He wasn’t even supposed to manage Athletico Paranaense when he took on the role of technical director back in May. But in less than a week, and with the club struggling for results, the board simply couldn’t resist the allure of Família Scolari.

Presenting an even gentler persona without his signature moustache, he steered what appeared an innocuous group into the quarter-finals of the Copa do Brasil, carried them as high as their present sixth in the standings, and somehow, some way, brought them to the cusp of continental glory.

Paraguayan champions Libertad were vanquished in the round of 16; Argentina’s Estudiantes were next to be stunned by Scolari and his Rubo-Negro in the quarter-finals. And then, the biggest upset of them all — a two-legged toppling of reigning Libertadores champions Palmeiras in the penultimate round of the tournament.

Yes, Flamengo are expected to claim a third continental crown Saturday afternoon at Estadio Monumental, but if Scolari and Athletico are quietly confident — and they are — it’s because in Palmeiras the biggest giant has already been slain. And, as the 73-year-old told O Globo on Thursday, his side actually stand a better chance in a single-leg encounter.

Of course, job one will be to neutralize Mengão’s potent attack, which features both Gabriel Barbosa — who scored twice in the 2019 final — and newly minted Brazil international Pedro, whose 12 goals lead the current competition. Uruguayan playmaker Giorgian De Arrascaeta will also have to be dealt with — a job that will likely fall to former Manchester City midfielder Fernandinho.

David Terans, another Uruguayan (and part of La Celeste’s preliminary World Cup squad) will be Athletico’s creative influence, looking to set up attackers Vitinho, Vitor Roque and countryman Augustin Canobbio. Scolari has suggested preferred striker Pablo, recovering from a muscle injury, will likely start on the bench. Playing coy perhaps. He’s also questioned the quality of the Guayaquil pitch.

In many ways, it’s a strange combination of manager and club. There is Felipão, literally “Big Phil,” who has won the biggest trophy of them all, and there is Athletico Paranaense, relatively small, only once the national champion, in just their second Libertadores final.

If this is Scolari’s last hurrah, it will also go down as his most improbable triumph. And then, from such an astonishing height, an almost immediate exit from the sport.

He has three grandchildren, and a fourth is on the way. His son just bought a season ticket behind the dugout at Arena do Grȇmio, and he’s excited to support the club he managed on four occasions. He says he’s always been guided by the present and doesn’t expect retirement to take much getting used to.

As for the rest of us…

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