Adenor Leonardo Bacchi, better known as Tite is the current manager of Brazillian team Corinthians, who are the reigning champions of Brasileiro Serie A. As the title suggests, he’s heavily rumoured to be the next manager of the Brazil Football team.
He’d be replacing Dunga, who has already been sacked by the Brazillian Football Confederation after getting eliminated from Copa America Centenario.
It could be argued that the last high-profile coach to come out of Brazil was Luiz Felipe Scolari and there has been a dearth of worthy names ever since. This has been cemented by the performance of various candidates who’ve taken up the national team job in the last decade, but can Tite be any different?
Here we take a look at the relatively unknown master.
#1 Tryst with Scolari
Adenor Leonardo Bacchi was born in Caxias de Sul, Brazil. During his schooling, Tite attended Instituto Estadual de Educação Cristovão de Mendoza, where a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari was his physical education teacher. True to his nature, Scolari was quite a tough taskmaster when he donned the role of a physical education teacher as well.
It’s believed that Tite was one of the students that he was most impressed with during his time at the school. In fact, he actually gave Tite his first shot at professional football by introducing him to Caxias, a professional football club based in his hometown.
As fate would have it, their paths crossed a few times while managing some of the best clubs in Brazil. During the 2011 season, Tite was the manager of Corinthians and across the town of Sao Paulo, in Palmeiras, the manager’s hat was donned by Scolari.
In their last league game of Campeonato Brasileiro 2011, Corinthians won the derby and in the process won the league. Later, after a Libertadores defeat, and with Tite’s job on the line, Corinthians had to face Palmeiras in Campeonato Paulista (Sao Paulo state championship).
Once again, Palmeiras ended up on the losing side and thus helped Corinthians to the two titles in the 2011 season.
#2 Rise to fame
Tite began his managerial career as the manager of Guarany de Garibaldi in 1990. After some uneventful spells with various clubs, Tite was then appointed as the manager of Caxias in 1999, the club he started his professional playing career with.
Tite led them to a breakthrough campaign in the 2000 Campeonato Gaucho (top-flight professional football league in the Brazillian state of Rio Grande do Sul). In fact, he defeated a Gremio side lead by Brazillian legend Ronaldinho to claim the title.
What made it more special was that rarely did a team other than Gremio or Internacional win this tournament and as history had shown, only two teams outside the “big two” had won the tournament in the 50 years preceding Tite’s campaign.
#3 Student of Ancelotti
Corinthians’ 2012 campaign was quite a lacklustre one compared to their previous campaign and after a trophyless season, there were rumours about Tite’s job as well. Subsequently, the club did not offer a new contract to him and Tite saw out his contract which expired at the end of the season and then he took some time off his work.
He set his eyes on studying modern football. Most notably, he spent a lot of his time quite close to the Real Madrid camp observing Carlo Ancelotti’s tactical nuance. "What he did for me, I do not know if I would do for another professional," he commented about the Italian manager.
His post-sabbatical work was considered groundbreaking in terms of Brazillian football as he is said to have injected a lot more strategy into a league which relies mainly on flair, and lots of goals.
#4 Previous favourite?
The 2014 World Cup proved to be a very disastrous one for Brazil. After the humiliating 7-1 defeat at the hands of the Germans, the whole country was in shock. Quite understandably, the then national team manager Luiz Felipe Scolari was subsequently sacked.
Following their usual tradition, Brazillian names were looked upon to replace him but as Tite was on a sabbatical at that moment of time, he was rumoured to be the front-runner for the job and there were scores of media houses predicting him as the favourite to take over.
At least one poll even showed him to be the fans’ favourite for the job as well. Shockingly, the Brazillian job was offered to an ex-manager, Dunga and he accepted it.
#5 Across enemy lines
Tite has spent most of his successful managerial career in Brazil. In his long career, he has worked with the likes of Caxias, Gremio, Internacional, Corinthians and Palmeiras. In fact, he has often worked with clubs that aren’t really amicable with each other.
For instance, he’s worked for both Corinthians and Palmeiras. The match between the two is of great significance locally and has often been ranked as one of the best derbies in the world. He also jumped ship on his local club Caxias, when he was asked to take charge of a club nearby, in Gremio.
Although being close, these two clubs are not totally hostile towards each other but his move a few years later to Gremio’s bitter rivals, Internacional, did not go down well with both sets of fans. In particular, the Internacional fans made their resentment very hostile and his appointment was a very tricky one at that time.
Thankfully, that ship has sailed and once again, he is pretty much the favourite to take the glorious nation forward in the trickiest of times.
