World Cup titles serve to motivate Brazilian team for qualifiers -- china.org.cn

Brazil's coach Dunga holds the soccer World Cup trophy before a training session in Teresopolis June 12, 2008. Brazil will play against Paraguay and Argentina in a World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer match on June 15 and 18.

The president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), Ricardo Teixeira, on Thursday took the two FIFA World Cup trophies won by the national team in 1994 and 2002, in order to motivate the players who are practicing in Rio for the qualifiers of the 2010 edition of the competition.

In his trip back from Switzerland, where he homologated Brazil as host to the 2014 World Cup at FIFA's headquarters, Teixeira decided to stop by CBF's training center in Teresopolis, in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro state.

There, he exhibited to the athletes and coaching committee the trophies won in the United States (1994), South Korea and Japan (2002), representing Brazil's two most recent World Cup titles, which total five, together with the 1958, 1962 and 1970 editions.

Those trophies are the goal that all players dream of achieving in their careers. Then, there cannot be better stimulus to this group, in a moment when the Brazilian team has two so important games in the qualifiers, said the president.

Brazil will face Paraguay in Asuncion on June 15, and Argentinain Belo Horizonte on June 18, in the fifth and sixth rounds of the qualifying tournament for South Africa's World Cup, which started in Oct. last year.

However, the team has been presenting disappointing results in friendly games against adversaries that are not regarded as football superpowers as Brazil usually is.

Last week in the U.S., the squad beat Canada by a one-goal lead (3-2) and was overcome by Venezuela in a surprising 0-2 defeat.

Earlier on Thursday, the players welcomed another visitor in the training center. Arsenals Brazilian-Croatian forward Eduardo Silva went there to talk to fellow footballer Gilberto Silva, who plays alongside him in the English club, and to the national teams head physician, Jose Luis Runco, who operated on him after he had his leg broken by Birmingham's defender Martin Taylor in a Premier League game in Feb.

(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2008)