Pressure builds on coach Dunga after Brazil exit

Beijing: Dunga is confident he will keep his high-pressure job as Brazil's national coach after a galling blow to the football-mad country's pysche from a 3-0 Olympic drubbing by rivals Argentina.

Pressure is racheting up on Dunga as Brazil leave the Olympics again without a gold medal and the prospect that Argentina will clinch back-to-back titles in Saturday's final against Nigeria.

Dunga came to Beijing already under fire over the five-time World Cup champions' struggling start to South American qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, lying in fifth spot one-third of the way through the play-offs where the top four go to South Africa.

Brazil next face a testing away match against fourth-placed Chile in Santiago on September 7 where a loss could spell the end of Dunga's two-year tenure in one of world football's most demanding jobs.

But the 44-year-old former midfielder, who was captain when Brazil won the 1994 World Cup in the United States and also wore the armband four years later when they finished runners-up to France, remains calm amid the maelstrom.

"We are going to carry on with the same work I've been doing since my arrival," said Dunga, who doubles up as Brazil's Olympic under-23 team coach.

"Of course, the pressure and the questions will increase but I have enough confidence in what I am doing to carry on with the job."

Brazilian media are predicting that Dunga could eventually suffer the same fate as Wanderley Luxemburgo, who was axed as coach after his Olympic team lost in the quarter-finals in Sydney eight years ago.

"It's at this sort of moment that we see how people react," Dunga said.

"This defeat increases the pressure on our work. It is a delicate time, but we have to keep working hard and stand by our convictions.

"In the final of the Copa America we beat Argentina 3-0, and now it was our turn to lose," Dunga added.

Brazil, a two-time Olympic silver medallist, will try to get something out of the wreckage when they play Belgium in the bronze medal match in Shanghai on Friday.

Brazil's pragmatic playing style under Dunga has been criticised with the country's aficionados obsessive about 'Jogo bonito' -- play beautiful -- but Dunga insists he will not change his results-oriented approach.

"We have to play against everything, we have to play to win, there's no other way," he said.

"If the opposition play open football against Brazil, then we can play open and pretty football."