In reply to Steve John B: I disagree. There is a nice blog on the bbc website which is about south american football.
At one point Brazils teams where small and not strong. After one world cup where they where dominated physically the Brazilian FA decided to focus on strength and size of the players.
If you look at the players they have now, they are generally a lot bigger and stronger than 10 -15 years ago. And they are still awesome.
Strength can only be a benefit. The problem in England is that skill is not encouraged or promoted. In brazil they play with a smaller ball from a young age which requires more control. Also footsal is popular which requires lots of skill. Plenty of the top players of recent years played footsal such as Robinio, Ronaldiniho and I would guess some others as well.