Zidane takes France, Italy implodes, and Brazil has zero chance of reaching the quarters — what on earth is happening in world football
Zidane takes charge of France, Maldini and Leonardo quit Italy amid the Pirlo fallout, and the model gives Brazil a zero percent chance of reaching the quarter-finals.
World football is in full meltdown — and Brazil hasn't even made the quarter-finals yet.
France have confirmed Zinedine Zidane as their new national-team manager. For anyone who grew up watching him tear Brazil apart in the 2006 World Cup quarter-finals, the image is striking: the man who humiliated the Seleção that day now leads Les Bleus into the road to 2026. The BBC revisited Zidane's masterclass in that match, and the symbolism is hard to ignore.
On the other side of the Alps, Italy is living through institutional chaos. Paolo Maldini, appointed technical director of the Italian federation on 11 July to help rebuild the national team after three consecutive World Cup qualifying failures, resigned just 16 days later. Leaving with him was Leonardo, the former Brazil international who had been brought in as his advisor. The trigger, according to The Guardian, was the collapse of Andrea Pirlo's bid for the head-coach role — blocked because of the former player's ties to a Russian betting company.
And Brazil? Golmetria's model gives the Seleção a zero percent chance of reaching the quarter-finals of this World Cup. Zero. With an ELO rating of 1,988 and a tournament ranking of 24th, Brazil is far from the elite tier the model projects — France, for instance, shows an 80.1% chance of advancing to the quarters and an ELO of 2,062.
The market agrees: the odds place France at an implied title probability of 17.86%, against Brazil's 10.53%. A real gap, not merely a symbolic one.
Zidane is back. Italy has imploded. And Brazil urgently needs to answer one question: when will the Seleção start frightening the world again — instead of being the side everyone else wants to draw?