Carlos Alberto Parreira coached Brazil to the 1994 World Cup title and coached Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia and South Africa at the World Cup. The Brazilian, who also coached the MetroStars in 1997, addressed several issues in an interview with FIFA.com, including ...

On Brazil's player pool for the World Cup it hosts in 2014: "This generation is promising and talented but we’ll only see what they’re really made of come 2014. Neymar’s involvement makes this, perhaps, one of the most gifted crops we’ve had in recent years. He’s a class apart."

On Brazil's disappointing quarterfinal exit at the 2006 World Cup when he was coach: "We tried to make a tactical plan work including four players who’d virtually never had any defensive responsibility: Kaka, Ronaldinho Gaucho, Adriano and Ronaldo. It was such a talented attack and it went so well for a long time, like at the Confederations Cup [2005] with Robinho in place of Ronaldo, that it didn’t raise many concerns. But, for the reasons that everybody has spoken about many times – some players not being in the best shape, a slight shortage of the commitment you need for a tournament like that – we weren’t able to carry our form into the World Cup itself."

On criticism of the playing style, at the time, of his 1994 World Cup-winning Brazil: "Time goes by and nobody remembers things like that. What goes down forever is winning the title, full stop. It was a title win that ended a 24-year drought, during which period we’d never even reached the final. If you look back, it was a very good team. Taffarel is among the best keepers Brazil have ever had. Jorginho and Aldair [were among the best ever in their positions] too, as was Branco. I don’t want to compare him with Nilton Santos [a world champion in 1958 and 1962], who was a class apart, but Branco was one of the finest left-backs Brazil ever produced."