Obviously you havent seen Aldair play - take away color of his skin & nationality he had Baresi in his making.

. But I agree with your assertion that Brazilian defenders often get recognized for things European counterparts can only dream of.
I mean god knows how many attackers Lucio left in their awake. But I do feel Brazilian defenders often get steretyed too much as casual, weak, and doesnt have defender mentality - because that is simply not true in a modern day. Cris, for example, based on what I see in CL, is one hard bastard who doesnt take any prisoners. Ditto for Luisao of Benfica - one of my favorite player.
And we all know how Cafu demolished C.Ronaldo in the CL encounter 3 years ago. Cafu is a first-class defender in both positional sense and actual defending. He may not do Nestaesque back-tackles but he rarely buys into fakes, and keep his feet on the ground. And considering how much he likes to maurade forward, his positional sense is excellent.
However, I think the days of stereotyping players style is long gone. We live in a era where most Brazilian esque plays for Portugal and most Italian like captained Brazil.