Former World Cup winning goalkeeper Gilmar Rinaldi has been appointed Brazil's new technical director of soccer, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) said on Thursday.
His appointment comes three days after coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and his backroom staff resigned following Brazil's humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in their World Cup semi-final.
Rinaldi was reserve goalkeeper in 1994 when Brazil won their fifth World Cup title.
Current CBF president Jose Maria Marin said that the choice of Rinaldi was with view to the short and long term.
"After the president he [Rinaldi] will be in charge of all the national team. We are doing this for the long term and not just this one moment, and always in harmony and in concordance with the present and future president. We don't want to make a choice that is only for the moment. No, we are visualizing this process from the short, medium and long term," Marin said.
The CBF said also that they hoped to appoint a new coach to succeed Scolari by next Tuesday.
Scolari's Brazil were favorites to win the tournament but were demolished 7-1 in the semi-finals by eventual champions Germany.
To compound their misery, they lost the third-place playoff 3-0 against the Netherlands.
Rinaldi said that now was the time to have a talk with those relevant in order to devise a plan for the future of Brazilian soccer.
"To form a plan with a new philosophy I will talk to former players and coaches. I think this is really the time to listen with humility to know what is happening, and to draw from the experiences of others who maybe weren't asked to fill my post or another, but can help because at the end of the day they are Brazilians and help make up the national team and certainly I cannot deny this," Rinaldi said.
Early front-runners to replace Scolari include Tite, the man who led Corinthians to the Libertadores Cup and Club World Cup in 2012, and Muricy Ramalho, the current coach of Sao Paulo.
Rinaldi said that Brazil would not look to copy any other country's style.
"We will travel a lot. We will watch not just the games but also trainings, which is where I believe you see different things. We will interact with other coaches as they want to know what we are doing and we also want to know what is happening in the world. We won't copy anyone but now we need to adapt the methods that have been very successful throughout the world to our style and culture. We need to respect the limits of what is possible and not possible with our national Brazilian team," Rinaldi said.
Some critics of the national team have called for the selection of a foreign coach for the first time in Brazil's history.
The CBF has always resisted that idea, with reports they refused to even talk with Spaniard Pep Guardiola before he joined Bayern Munich.
REUTERS