Leonardo in Mumbai on Wednesday. (AFP)

Mumbai: Brazil’s 1994 World Cup winning squad member Leonardo on Tuesday said that it’s becoming increasingly difficult at the qualifying stage itself of the World Cup.

“Football is growing bigger and bigger with standards rising around the world and qualifying for the World Cup itself is getting increasingly difficult as was shown recently during the final rounds of qualifiers.

“Uruguay (champions in 1930 and 1934) have not made it, and have been knocked out by Australia,” said Leonardo.

The midfield general, who was a member of the famed yellow jersied outfit that regained the World Cup after a gap of 24 years in the US, was in the city as part of the AC Milan juniors team which is on a short visit to India as part of the “Festa Italiana 2005”, organised by the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Leonardo, speaking to the reporters after guiding the junior team of the world famous Italian Serie A club to a 7-1 rout of a Bombay Gymkhana rag-tag outfit, placed Brazil as the firm favourites for clinching the World Cup next year in Germany for the sixth time.

“Brazil are favourites for the World Cup. They are a great side with lot of great players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robinho. I expect Brazil to play with a lot of flair this time around as they have been in the Cup final over the last three editions,” the AC Milan brand ambassador said.

“There are other big teams like hosts Germany, England, Argentina and Italy to look out for, but Brazil are the favourites,” said Leonardo who quit playing for AC Milan three years ago.

“In 1994 when I played with Bebeto and Romario, we had not won the World Cup for 24 years and had to play differently (shedding their traditional flair). But things are different now with Brazil having entered the last three title clashes and winning two of those (in 1994 and 2002),” Leonardo said.

“I expect a player like Ronaldinho to exhibit his full bag of tricks (without any extra pressure due to Brazil’s superb displays in the last three World Cups),” he explained. Elaborating on the rising standards in world football, Leonardo said that even in Asian countries like Japan ? coached by his Brazilian compatriot Zico ? a member of the great 1982 World Cup team, Korea and China are becoming better by the day.

“There are a lot of countries in Africa, central America and Asia which have improved a lot and giving a tough time to the big football playing nations,” he said.

On the difficulties encountered by a Brazilian in Serie A, he said the Italian league was a lot different from the other European leagues and it needs time for an outsider. (PTI)