It’s the end of the World Cup as we know it

By Liam Mackey

THE good news today is that the most baffling mystery of World Cup 2002 has finally been solved. We have discovered the whereabouts of Mark Lawrenson’s missing moustache. And it was staring us in the face all the time, so to speak, from its unlikely new home just above the forehead of a Mr Ronaldo of Brazil. To which one can only say: blimey, that must have been some tackle.

It was fitting (which is more than can be said for the hair-do) that old ’Aldo should wrap up the World Cup in such sensational fashion. And how typical it is of Brazil that they should also go the extra mile to ensure that the decisive moment in a final would not be remembered as a goalkeeping error.

Instead, we are left with the glorious memory of a passing move from deep in their own-half, decorated with a mouthwatering dummy from Rivaldo and finished with sublime precision by, perhaps, the greatest comeback kid of them all.

On RTE, Bill O’Herlihy, dubbing Liam Brady "a romantic", invited him to luxuriate in the beauty of that final goal. Although it’s hard to imagine Liamo turning up at Montrose with a bouquet of flowers, he was happy to oblige in the footballing context, and duly waxed lyrical about a Brazilian move which recalled Wordsworth: a host of golden jerseys, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Well, forgive me, but the samba boys do tend to bring out the romantic in all of us. And yet, in some quarters, there seems to be a somewhat grudging acceptance of Brazil’s right to, yet again, lord it over the rest of the football world.

There appear to be three reasons for such grumblings. The first is that Brazil went into the tournament with critical derision still ringing in their ears after a deeply troubling qualifying campaign and, as we know, critics never like to be confounded. Secondly, there is the argument that the team was overly reliant on the Three Rs. And, finally, conventional wisdom has it that World Cup 2002 was a comparatively poor tournament, lacking in the kind of top quality opposition which might have set Big Phil’s boys a sterner test.

I can’t agree. Certainly, it took a while for Brazil to convince the doubters, but pretty much from word go there were signs that no other side would be able to match them for attacking invention.

That may seem to lend substance to the point about dominance by the Three Rs but any credible overview of their performances throughout would have to conclude that players such as Roque Junior, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Edmilson, Gilberto Silva, Kleberson, Lucio and goalkeeper Marcos, all made outstanding contributions to the campaign.

As to the overall quality of the tournament, while there is clearly no argument against the case that there was a paucity of classic games between titans, World Cup 2002 served up plenty of stirring contests, exciting matches and memorable goals to leave any fan happy.

And it was hardly Brazil’s fault that, alone among the traditional giants, they went about slaying all-comers with gleeful abandon. As John Giles likes to say, you can only play what’s in front of you, and from their almost comically absurd dismissal of Costa Rica, through their controlled toying with England, to that final triumph of uninhibited style over much more than mere stubborn German resistance, Brazil passed all the tests with flying canary yellow.

For what it’s worth, in the great Brazilian World Cup order of merit in my own lifetime, I would rank the current side third behind, in first place, the 1970 team of all stars and, in second, the dazzling underachievers of 1982.

Of course, first impressions don’t always last. But then, conventional wisdom can’t always be trusted either. On the eve of the Brazil-England quarter-final, with the daft Tony Banks talking about a national holiday should England "go all the way", the Beeb cranked up the hype by showing the fabled game between the two nations in Guadalajara in 1970.

It was illuminating, to say the least. Yes, there were wonderful things to savour - the incredible Banks save from Pele, the majestic tackle by Bobby Moore and the surgical precision of Jair’s winning goal - but, 30 years on, the whole thing scarcely lived up to its billing as one of the greatest games of all time.

One good reason for this is that, on account of being played in murderous mid-day heat, the match unfolded for long periods at what can only be described as a pedestrian pace. This sort of thing may appeal to those who like to indulge in the notion of football as physical chess. But a bit more application and a little less deliberation would not have gone amiss. It was also extraordinary to see how so much of the game passed Pele by. Not only that, but on a couple of occasions, he cheaply squandered possession and — Alan Hansen, John Giles and Jack Charlton look away now — didn’t bother tracking back.

None of which is meant to belittle the achievements of that Brazil side of 1970. For conclusive proof that they were the best ever, the game to watch would be that sensational final against a formidable Italian team, when Pele opened the scoring with a monumental leaping header and Carlos Alberto closed it by applying the flying, finishing touch to the single greatest team goal of all time. And, yes, for evidence that Pele really was the best, see not only this game, but also the halfway line shot against Czechoslovakia, the extravagant dummy against Uruguay, and so much more.

In short, the tapes don’t lie. The manner and merit of their victory in 1970 remains undisputed but, for all the plaudits that history has bestowed on it, the England game fails to set the nerves a-tingling, other than as the "clash of titans" which it was on paper.

Similarly, the tale of the unexpected, which was Japan-Korea 2002, may blind some observers to the quality of teams like Turkey and South Korea, while diminishing the ultimate triumph of Brazil.

But still the tapes don’t lie. Those passes, that dummy, the perfection of Ronaldo’s finish - Brazil brought it all to a close in style that even Carlos Alberto would have approved of. It was the end of the World Cup as we knew it — and Liam Brady and I weren’t the only ones feeling fine.