Sport

Simoes coaching Brazil women's team

Rene Simoes - File

RIO DE JANEIRO, (REUTERS):

FORMER JAMAICA COACH Rene Simoes, who took the Reggae Boyz to the World Cup finals in 1998, took charge of the Brazilian women's team yesterday.

Simoes will lead the team at the Athens Olympics in August and will begin preparing with a training camp for his 22-strong squad, which includes Ronaldo's estranged wife Milene Domingues, at the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) mountain retreat at Teresopolis starting Monday.

"The future belongs to the women, who will command everything because they have sensibility, strength and know how to impose themselves," Simoes told reporters after being presented as the new coach.

Domingues was included in the squad despite criticism that she was called up for last year's women's World Cup to attract publicity rather than for her ability.

Marketing move

"I will only be able to tell you in two months if her call-up was just a marketing move," Simoes said.

Ronaldo and Domingues, who have a son named Ronald, announced last November they were separating less than four years after they were married.

Brazil reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup last year and won the Pan-American Games gold medal in Santo Domingo.

The players, several of whom are unemployed as Brazil does not have a professional women's league, later complained of a lack of support for their game in South America's biggest country.

The Brazilian men's team, who have never won an Olympic gold, failed to qualify for Athens.