Rotund Ron worries Brazil

ON the train down to Mannheim, the morning after watching Brazil do just enough to edge out Croatia in the Olympiastadion in Berlin, we fell in with a friendly group of Croatian Football Association staff in the restaurant car.

One high-ranking CFA official couldn’t disguise his disappointment at his country’s narrow failure to pick up a point at the expense of the World Cup favourites the previous night, pointing to one moment’s lack of concentration — a slowness in closing down Kaka before he swept home the winning goal — as the difference between the teams.

In a more generous mood he might have given a little more credit to the sublime finish by a player who deserved his man of the match gong but, in common with everybody else, our Balkan friend’s attention was mainly drawn to the Brazilian who had been anything but a candidate for honours.

As far up the line as the president of Brazil, there had been concerns expressed going into this tournament about Ronaldo’s fitness for the fray.

The president had even made bold to inquire about his weight and subsequently had to apologise.

But after Tuesday night, it is Big Ron who should be doling out the apologies. Probably not since his controversial (dis)appearance in the 1998 World Cup final against France, has The Player Formerly Known As The World’s Best contributed such a lame and lacklustre performance in the yellow and blue.

And it didn’t look like a simple matter of lack of fitness: even his ability to control the ball seemed to have deserted him, as his sole meaningful contribution to the 90 minutes was restricted to a shot fired over the top from distance in the second half. Not too long after that the axe fell, manager Carlos Alberto Parreira calling him ashore and sending on young Robinho, who quickly injected urgency into proceedings by firing a shot into the box which Adriano – another striking disappointment on the night — stabbed past the post.

The big question now is whether Parreira will keep Ronaldo on the bench for Brazil’s trip to Munich where they take on Australia on Sunday. But if he listens to his Brazilian critics, he may as well send the player home right now to watch the rest of the tournament on the telly. Jeered off the pitch at the Olympiastadion, albeit mainly by the always vociferous Croatian supporters, the man once dubbed The Phenomenal One then had to run — or, more likely, walk — the gauntlet of newspaper reporters and former players.

One columnist in Rio said: “It was torture to see him like a wobbling heavyweight, staggering around the pitch as if what was going on around him had nothing to do with him.” Meanwhile, Tostao, a star of the peerless Brazilian team which won the World Cup in 1970, used just three incriminating words to sum up Ronaldo’s no-show: “slow and weird.”

It almost sounds like we’re back to the mysterious attack of the headstaggers back in Paris in 98.

The only consolation for samba supporters is that they effectively beat a decent Croatian side with ten men — or even nine-and-a-half if you take away Adriano’s disappointing display.

Curiously, the famous 1982 Brazilian World Cup team lacked a clinical goal-grabber to lead the line, but there was ample compensation with goals of bewildering variety coming from the likes of Zico, Socrates, Eder and Falcao. On Tuesday’s evidence the current Brazil team can only offer two where once there was four. Unless things change drastically, they will be relying to progress on Ronaldinho and Kaka, with possibly the odd seismic cameo from Roberto Carlos.

My Croatian friend argued that Robinho now has to start instead of Ronaldo but, given the latter’s exalted status in his country’s football pantheon, he doubted if Parreira would have the confidence to see a big decision through to its logical conclusion. Likening Brazil to Real Madrid, he reckoned they were two teams carrying too many untouchable superstars.

Yet, a caveat must always be entered where Brazil are concerned: there were at least glimpses of their superior passing rhythm on show in Berlin and, if their opening game acts as the wake-up call it should, we will hopefully see them deliver something that would deserve the reward of a sixth World Cup.

Meanwhile, this being a big World Cup but a small world, our Croatian friend was only too happy to sing the praises of Ireland, insisting that the best team camp they have ever enjoyed was at the Nuremore Hotel in Carrickmacross before the 1996 European championships in England. Facilities were wonderful he said, the only problem being that the absence of a suitable pitch in the neighbourhood meant they had to travel to Dundalk for a full training session. As a result, on lighter days, he revealed, the team actually trained on the golf course.

Today, we’re bound for Nuremburg and what should be England’s least challenging game of Group B, although Trinidad and Tobago’s resilient performance against Sweden suggests England might once again wobble a little before going through. In Paris it was a missing man on the pitch who dominated debate; in Nuremberg today it will be a missing man off the pitch to whom all eyes are turned.

I have serious reservations about Wayne Rooney being rushed back to rescue England but it’s probably not unfair to say that even if he takes to the pitch on one leg, he will probably make more of an impression that poor old Big Ron.