Rio de Janeiro  - Brazil's national coach Carlos Dunga was enjoying a welcome relief Monday: after being seriously questioned over his team's performance in recent months, he was enjoying being back safe in second place in the South American qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

A 3-0 win over Chile late Sunday in Santiago silenced the voices demanding Dunga be sacked following the failed campaign to get Brazil its first-ever Olympic football gold medal in Beijing 2008, when the team suffered a painful 3-0 defeat at the hands of arch-rival Argentina.

The coach was happy about the win, and he did not let the opportunity slip by to send Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a message. In recent days, Lula - a passionate football fan - joined Brazilian media in criticizing the national team.

The president went so far as to hurtfully say that Argentine striker Lionel Messi was in his view the best player in the world and that Brazilian footballers did "not have a soul."

"I think the president is happy today," Dunga said in the early hours of Monday.

However, it was not just Lula who might have changed his mind. For weeks Brazilian media had been pouring constant criticism on their players and on Dunga's work as coach. On Monday, however, they enthusiastically celebrated the win against Chile.

"This way it is great!" said the sports daily Lance. "Brazil played with courage and strength, they climbed to second place in the qualifiers and overtook Argentina."

"There was samba!" said the daily O Dia.

The newspaper particularly praised Sevilla striker Luis Fabiano, who got back his nickname "Fabulous" after scoring a brace against Chile.

"Brazil finally got on the pitch!" the daily O Globo noted in its turn, noting that the win "gives Dunga some calm."

Luis Fabiano's two goals and another one from Manchester City's new signing Robinho, in short, transformed the country's pessimistic scepticism into enthusiastic confidence.

The sale of tickets for Brazil's home game against the lowly Bolivia Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro was expected to speed up Monday. By Sunday, organizers had only managed to sell 8,000 of the 29,000 tickets they had put up for sale.

Even if Dunga will not openly admit it, his players hope the team will come out of the eighth round of qualifiers Wednesday at the top of the table.

Brazil had gone into the seventh round in an embarrassing fifth place that - at the end of the qualifiers - would not have granted them a place in the World Cup and would instead have condemned the winner of a record five editions of the greatest event in world football to a humiliating playoff with a team from North, Central America and the Caribbean.

"Our plan was to get six points in these two games (against Chile and Bolivia) and to get to be in the first places. Now that we really have options of climbing to the top spot, we have to go for that goal and hope that other results will help us attain it," Ronaldinho explained. (dpa)