Parreira is back!

 PARIS (AP) -- After leading Brazil to victory in the 1994 World Cup, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira is coming back this summer with rank outsider Saudi Arabia.
 Some might consider it a big step backwards. For the coach, it is a gift from heaven.
 Totally relaxed and all smiles, Parreira intends to make the most of his belated invitation to soccer's greatest party after singing on to coach the Saudis last December.
 "The difference is so big," he said. "There is no responsibility to have to win at any cost."
 Coaching the New York/New Jersey MetroStars of Major League Soccer up to December, he didn't even have to go through the aggravations of qualifying his team.
 "It's like scoring the winning goal in the last minute," he said.
 The thought briefly brought back the staggering pressure four years ago, when Brazil ended a two-decade drought to win the title with a penalty shootout against Italy.
 "If you lose the final, you're a loser," he said. "It's not human what they do with a coach in Brazil.
 "I know what it cost me and I wouldn't want to go through this again."
 Now challenges are more manageable. Parreira will now be pleased if his team doesn't lose the World Cup opener against Denmark. Host France and South Africa are the other Group C opponents.
 "At least a draw will give us a good chance," he said of the June 12 game in Lens. Even with an expected loss to France in the second game, it will leave the Saudis with a potential do-or-die match against the South Africans with a second-round berth at stake.
 "That first game will be like a final," he said.
 In Brazil, a key task was choosing between star players. Now, it is finding a few.
 "In Saudi Arabia, if one or two players get injured, you have no replacements," he said.
 He will be taking the Saudi squad to France a first time April 17 and plans to play six games between May 6 and June 3, including matches against Jamaica, Iceland, Namibia, Mexico, England and Norway.
 Due to the slower pace of the Saudi game, cranking up the physical fitness of players will be his first challenge.
 Parreira is not the first Brazilian coach to lead the Saudis. Mario Zagallo had an unsuccessful stint in 1984.
 Now Zagallo is leading Brazil instead, and Parreira pitied him because of the relentless media pressure.
 "Already now, it's the World Cup every day in Brazil," Parreira said. "It's too much."
 This year, Parreira can wander along the streets of Paris a relative unknown.
 "I wanted a normal life again," he said.