QPR Director To Manage Brazil

By London_Duncan Last edited 212 months ago
QPR Director To Manage Brazil
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A surprising headline, to be sure, but we shouldn’t be that shocked. After all, he was first considered for the job six years ago. Then he was said to be unhappy with administrators overseeing team affairs, but now Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, Dunga to his friends, captain of Brazil’s 1994 world cup winning side and member of the Queens Park Rangers board since Gianni Paladini’s arrival as majority shareholder in 2004, has succumbed to the lure of trying to match Franz Beckenbauer’s feat of both captaining and managing a world cup winning side.

Dunga’s glamorous CV raised the profile of Rangers, but viewers of ITV’s recent Soccer Aid series may have seen more of him than fans attending Loftus Road. The QPR Report blog tracks his time at the club, beginning two years ago when the Evening Standard named Dunga as one of five equal benefactors who put money into the club. He did not accompany the others to a game shortly after the investment, but the then chairman Bill Power told the paper:

Dunga is definitely coming to watch some games…He doesn't speak much English, but they said he was courteous, polite and charming… He knew all about QPR and has shown a real desire to be involved. I am thrilled to welcome a former player of the very highest calibre to Loftus Road.

Bill certainly saw him twelve months later when he flew over from Japan to join Paladini in voting to remove Power from his position. In May of this year Dunga gave a bouyant interview to QPR’s official website, but last night he resigned from his position at the club to take up his new post with the Seleção.

Meanwhile recently confirmed QPR boss Gary Waddock is overseeing his first pre-season campaign. The club’s preparations have been hampered somewhat, the latest setback coming in Sorrento, Italy, where Waddock felt compelled to field a team of reserves, triallists and coaches when it became clear that Sorrento would be playing on a plastic pitch not unlike the one that once graced Loftus Road itself. The local side comfortably ran out 5-1 winners, but there was a silver lining to the evening as young Polish striker Adam Czerkas looked lively and scored with a fine shot on the turn to start his season-long loan in impressive fashion.

Picture via Scott Davies1's Flickr stream.

Last Updated 26 July 2006