RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's Olympic soccer team, which could include World Player of the Year Kaka, will stay in the athletes' village and travel on scheduled flights, Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) president Ricardo Teixeira said.
"The players will receive identical treatment to the athletes in other sports," Teixeira told the daily newspaper O Globo in an interview published on Sunday.
"I tried the other method and it didn't work. In Atlanta in 1996, we took the best team, the squad stayed in the best hotels, we spent $5 million and we didn't win.
"Now, our plan has Dunga's face," he said, referring to the hard-nosed former midfielder who coaches the senior national side and will be in charge of the Olympic team as well.
"If it's an Olympic team, it will stay in the Olympic village and other places designated by the organising committee, and will travel on scheduled flights."
Brazil, five times world champions, have never won the Olympic soccer tournament and regard it as the only major title missing from their collection.
South American teams take Olympic soccer, which features under-23 teams with three over-age players allowed per side, very seriously. Kaka has already said he wants to play in Beijing in August as one of the over-age squad members.
Brazil, under the guidance of senior coach Mario Zagallo, spent a year preparing for the Atlanta Olympics and took Rivaldo as one of their over-age players but were beaten by Nigeria in the semi-finals.
Four years later, Vanderlei Luxemburgo was fired as coach of the Olympic and senior teams after his side lost to Cameroon in the quarter-finals of the Sydney Games.
Brazil failed to qualify for Athens in 2004, when Argentina beat Paraguay in an all-South American final to win the gold medal.
