The Confederations Cup?
A warm-up tournament that doesn’t mean anything? Maybe.
But I enjoyed the final last summer and wrote this:
Brazil 3 Spain 0
Fred 22 Neymar 44 Fred 47
_____________________
Football is always a team game and the most efficient collective game-plan will usually win.
Arrigo Sacchi’s innovation was based on zones and power, as when AC Milan crushed Barcelona 4-0 in Athens in 1994.
By ’94, Fabio Capello had taken over and continued to develop Sacchi’s pressing ideas.
Three of those Milan goals were scored by winning the ball back in Barcelona’s half.
Big Phil has no Pele, no Jairzinho, no Zico or Socrates or Romario or Ronaldo. Not a footballer of that calibre.
But his team crushed Spain 3-0 and sent a warning to every national manager round the world.
The athletic forcefulness of Brazil earned a goal as early as 1 minute and 36 seconds when a cross created shambolic defending. Fred, fouled by Arbeloa, was on the deck in the six-yard box but hooked the ball past Casillas.
“What a shambles,” I thought : Brian Clough or George Graham would have gone mental if their team conceded that goal!
Oscar had a great chance but scuffed his shot into the ground and just wide and I thought : You’re better than that and you’ve got 82 more minutes to prove it.
The bouncy Marcelo was already taking the iniative, eager to make things happen, a leader among these golden athletes, who looked capable of winning every race and every jump and every tackle, pretty much.
It was a scrappy, stop-start contest because Brazil wanted it to be that kind of game. Oscar hacked Iniesta very meanly in 29, and Luiz Gustavo of triple-winning Bayern has a steely presence too.
The BBC commentator said, “It’s not the swaggering samba Brazil – it’s the get-stuck-in-Brazil.”
A sensational pass by Neymar released Fred, who rifled in a low shot that hit the foot of Casillas.
In 44, Oscar got a pass from Neymar and showed us that football is about choices. He had defenders in front of him and Hulk wide to his right but Oscar took his time and then gave the ball back to Neymar and I shouted “Oh!” when the little man took one touch and scored with a left-foot shot of remarkable ferocity. The ball rocketed high inside the near post, giving Casillas no chance. 2-0 and game over. No team was gonna come back from a goal like that at a time like that.
That shot was electrifying and it was more than a goal. It was a statement. It was a warning. It was a message: There’s plenty more where that came from.
The third goal in 47 was a pure pressing goal. Brazil forced a clearance and Marcelo won a 50-50 just inside Spain’s half and powered forward and passed to Hulk, who held off the tiny Jordi Alba and passed forward and left to Neymar, whose stepover released Fred, who slotted low across Casillas for 3-0.
That was the coup de grace.
“Spain have been spanked,” declared the BBC commentator.
Since October 2006, Spain have only lost 2 of 60 games, so they’ve had it all their own way for a very long time. Nobody’s been able to live with them .
But last night Spain were pulverised by the aggressive athleticism of Marcelo, Gustavo, Paulinho and the rest. In the future, this victory may shine as a landmark moment in international football but it only proved, once again, something I’ve known since I first started writing about football as a 16-year old grammar school boy : you can only play as well as you’re allowed to play.
28th June 2014
PS. Neymar is… five foot ten