Whatever colour they were, we’re all green with envy
When I heard that Brazil were going to be unveiling a new green shirt at the World Cup finals this summer, I almost choked on my prawn sandwich. Okay, I thought, we’ve all had to learn to accept that the ruthless commercialisation of football demands clubs change their gear almost as often as players change their girlfriends, but please, Brazil changing colour… why that’s sacrilege on a par with the All-Blacks re-branding as the All-Whites.
But, like a high-diver belly-flopping into the pool, it turns out I’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Brazil will be wearing green shirts alright but green as in that political party whose face currently glows red.
And not only Brazil. Portugal, Holland, the USA, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia and Slovenia will also be wearing 100% recycled shirts. And if that all sounds a bit too right-on for your tastes, you’ll doubtless be relieved to know that they’ll still be manufactured by Nike, so it’s not as if Sepp Blatter is letting socialism in through the back door. And, of course, it also means that Tiger Woods will sleep a little easier at night too, if that poor man ever manages to squeeze in a bit of shut-eye at all, at all.
Here’s the science bit: it says here that to make one shirt requires eight recycled bottles, which are sourced from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill and melted down before being pressed into fabric. Frankly, I’m impressed but, at the same time, if Brazil’s shirts were made from a combination of powdered rhino horn, the skin of endangered tigers and cuttings from the hair of Jedward, I couldn’t really care less just as long as they went on shining like the sun in all its morning glory.
Yep, if football was an idealistic country, then the colours of its flag would be canary yellow and cobalt blue. Apparently, Ireland’s own new strip will feature hooped socks which, according to the manufacturers, can cause opponents problems in reading a player’s movements. Yeah, right. On the other hand, repeated tests down through the years have shown that just the merest flash of yellow and blue can prompt hardened, cold-eyed stoppers to swoon.
It’s just the way it is: if you love football, you love Brazil. In fact, Brazil were probably one of the reasons you fell in love with the game in first place. That was certainly your correspondent’s experience as a nipper, when I watched their swaggering progress through the 1970 World Cup in a state approaching religious ecstasy. I also know for a fact that I watched in grainy black and white but, in my mind’s eye, I can only ever recollect seeing them doing their sensational thing in blazing technicolour.
How can you not adore a nation which produced the greatest team ever to win a World Cup (1970) and the greatest team never to win a World Cup (1982)? How can you not worship the land which gave us Pele, Garrincha, Zico, Rivelino, Socrates, Romario and the other Ronaldo? How can you feign indifference to a side which in the course of one tournament, Mexico ‘70, gave the world the greatest goal ever scored – the poetry-in-motion fourth against Italy in the final – and the greatest goal never scored – Pele’s outrageous dummy on the goalkeeper of Uruguay before he pulled the ball just the wrong side of the far post, as desperate defenders piled up like a multiple collision on a motorway?
All rhetorical questions, my friends. And even in the comparatively lean years – like in ‘74, ‘90 or that time in ‘98 in France when, in truly mysterious circumstances, they simply didn’t show up for the final – you always kept the faith, just because it was Brazil and therefore, at any moment, the mundane might give way to the extraordinary. The one time I was lucky enough to interview George Best, he told me that a little bit of the World Cup died for him any time Brazil went out early. I was pleased because I’d always felt like that too – but this was George Best saying it, you know? The best bending the knee to the best.
All of which is by way of explaining why I’m sure I’m not the only one relishing the opportunity of seeing Ireland play Brazil at the Emirates on Tuesday. Look, I know, there’s no escaping the still painful truth that this will be a World Cup warm-up for only one team on the pitch but, as means of getting back in the saddle after that bruising fall in Paris, this fixture is a much more welcome consolation prize than any ‘fair play’ bauble old Sepp might have had up his sleeve.
The beauty of playing Brazil, is that, in the unlikely circumstances that you beat them, you earn the closest thing to global bragging rights this side of winning the World Cup itself. On the other hand, should you get stuffed 5-0, you just shrug your shoulders and go, ‘well, it was Brazil, wasn’t it?’
Under Dunga, the samba superstars may be touch more functional than flamboyant but, no matter, they’re still Brazil and on Tuesday they’ll still be dazzling in the primary colours of the beautiful game.
