“I’m not responsible for the last 20 years, just four,” Tite smiled, and on this he was half-right. Tite did not create this baggage but it is his to carry now, and perhaps this was why he seemed so keen to underline the scale of the challenge ahead, the sheer volume of things that have to go right for Brazil to win their sixth World Cup.
Implicit in all this, perhaps, was a quiet rejection of the exceptionalism that has buttressed and ultimately bound many Brazil sides of the past. The most striking example of this was on home soil in 2014, when a hysterical Brazilian public discovered in the most crushing way that magic, fate and emotional fervour are no substitute for attention to detail and a vaguely functioning offside trap.
Tite knows this, of course. He is, at heart, a details man: a thorough analyst of the game who likes to consider a problem from every angle, cover every contingency. In concert with his trusted assistant Cleber Xavier, he has assembled a balanced, European-style side with less of the traditional Brazilian emphasis on marauding full-backs and totemic number nines. Instead, an experienced defence will be shielded by Casemiro and two energetic wingers .