Rio de Janeiro: Brazil coach Dunga said he has been keeping midfielder Ronaldinho in the second-choice team in order to cut down expectations from him.
"We made a plan to get him out of the limelight for a while and give him a little more privacy," said the coach. He arrived in Brazil on Friday after the team played friendlies against Kuwait and Ecuador.
Ronaldinho, a two-time FIFA World Player of the Year, has been going through a bad phase, say critics on his performance in Germany's World Cup and in his club team Barcelona.
According to Dunga, the midfielder's disappointing performance could be explained by the fact that he came straight from his vacation to play for the Spanish club, where he had just one day of practice before the team's first match.
"Modern football requires strength, explosion and speed. If well-prepared, he will get back to the Ronaldinho everybody knows," added Dunga, stressing that the player will spend the next 10 days practicing at Barcelona.
FIFA has included Ronaldinho's name in the list of 30 nominees to the 2006 World Player of the Year award. If he gets it, he will be the first football player in the history of FIFA to win the prize three times in a row.
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