Former AC Milan and Real Madrid striker Robinho suffered yet another disappointment with the national team after seeing Brazil get knocked out of the Copa America on penalties to Paraguay.
It was a result that gives huge disappointment to the nation of more than 300 million people. A football frenzied nation, Brazil suffered embarrassing exit at the World Cup 2014 and brought in Dunga in order to compensate for this disappointment. The former World Cup winning captain was given the task of winning the Copa America and he assembled a squad of experience replace – including Robinho – in order to do so.
Yet, although the experience was of no avail as the team suffered a disappointing exit even without reaching the semifinals. Brazil are favourites to reach the final and possibly win it, but losing Neymar in the group stages to a four match suspension proved extremely costly after they failed to find a way past the stubborn Paraguayan defence. Following a 1-1 draw with Paraguay after extra time, the game and into extra time. One of the players who substituted Robinho – Everton Ribeiro – missed his chance during the penalty shootout. Brazil went out of the tournament after a 4-3 loss on penalties.
Robinho says that he would have converted the glorious opportunity had he been on the pitch. “I wanted to stay to take a penalty, but I have to respect the coach’s decision. Usually I’m there to take a penalty. Now we must face it – our team has a lot to improve on. If one loses, everyone loses. Sadly, our performance dropped in the second half. We had the chance to finish the game. All due respect, but Paraguay aren’t among the best national teams. We could have won it, but we didn’t and conceded in a silly fashion,” said Robinho.