PORTUGAL COACH:Luiz Felipe Scolari

Talk about not resting on one's laurels. After directing Brazil to the 2002 World Cup title, Luiz Felipe Scolari signed on as Portuguese national coach. As the coach of a World Cup champion, Scolari can just about write his ticket to whatever national team he wants to coach. Big Phil, as he is known, at one point let it known that he is serious about the England job after Sven-Goran Eriksson leaves immediately after the World Cup, but later withdrew his name citing the intrusiveness of the British media. "He will stay until the World Cup,' Portuguese Football Association president Gilberto Madail told Reuters, "but if it was up to me, he would stay beyond that."

Scolari had been Brazilian's most successful club coach over the past decade, guiding two clubs, Gremio (1995) and Palmeiras (1999), to the Libertadores Cup (South America's version of the European Champions League). But with that came some baggage. Scolari, 57. a pragmatic man who stresses organization and defense, had forged a reputation as a disciplinarian and of using strong-armed tactics against opponents rather than doing something pretty with the feet. He inherited a situation that bordered on a national scandal as Brazil found itself in third place in qualifying (Brazil, which was virtually invincible in qualifying through the years, would lose an amazing six games).

Scolari once said that the Brazilian flair was gone. Asked by the Sunday Telegraph if the beautiful game was dead, Scolari replied, "Yes, for me it's a piece of history. When I have the conditions to play futebol-arte, when I'm winning, when I have qualification guaranteed, when I have got everything right, when it's a friendly and we can afford to lose -- then I'll let them play futebol-arte. But in competition the very definition of the word means we have to compete. We have to win. And if we have to win by force and organization, well, forget futebol-arte. To me, it's something from the fifties, something lyrical, something Utopian. We don't have it any more. I don't play this way."