MOST TEAMS are nervous in their first World Cup game, as we have seen on Days 1and 2 and 3 and 4.
On Day 5, it’s France and Brazil. France generate high expectations, Brazil generate very high expectations.
Franck Ribery will start against Switzerland, a young side who understand the French style and French culture very well.
The Swiss draw a lot of matches and this game will depend on when the first goal goes in. If France score early, they might dominate.
If it’s tight and 0-0 at half-time, anything could happen.
Trezeguet, the plank, has been dropped by Domenech, and Ribery of Marseilles is on the right flank. He is a flyer, a dynamic dribbler who runs straight at defenders and scares them. He is meteoric, a high-powered ball-player who creates unusual situations. If Ribery beats two men and loses the ball to a third, it can still be a goal, and that excites crowds.
For me, Ribery is a bit like Craig Bellamy but he has yet to prove he can finish like Bellamy. Most French football fans wanted to him to start in this game. He looks ready for it, but you just never know.
Thierry Henry failed in the European Cup Final but he might score goals in the World Cup. If he has a good first game he might have a great tournament
A WORLD CUP doesn’t really start until Brazil have played and they meet Croatia in Berlin tonight.
Haven’t read 27 articles about samba football recently, but I did read one.
It was by John Carlin in The Observer Sports Monthly and it was an exclusive interview with Ronaldinho, who described what he thinks his job is.
He said, “My role in the team is to create plays, to provide the last pass before a goal is scored. To assist : this is my role. To put a team-mate in a position to score. That is my biggest concern.”
Ronaldinho said he creates a mental picture, imagining new plays, and playing to a colleague’s particular abilities.
“When I construct those plays in my mind I take into account whether one team-mate likes to receive the ball at his feet, or ahead of him; if he is good with his head, and how he prefers to head the ball; if he is stronger on his right or left foot. That is my job. That is what I do. I imagine the game.”
The article wondered whether we will soon be saying that Ronaldinho is as good as Pele and Maradona.
That’s stretching it, but Tostao, now a journalist, says he can’t rule it out. Tostao was Pele’s sidekick in the 1970 team.
Some players thought Pele did too much showboating in that tournament, but he gave me my favourite football moment EVER when Brazil played Uruguay in the semi-final.
It was near the end of the game and Brazil were winning 3-1 as Pele raced onto a long diagonal pass as keeper Mazurkiewiecz came out to the edge of his penalty area.
Just when we thought that keeper and Pele might collide, he dummied the ball, let it run past the keeper towards the corner flag, then raced round him on the other side to retrieve the ball and shoot from a very narrow angle – but he hit it just past the far post.
It was an outrageous, preposterous moment, the kind of thing we might now call “thinking outside the box”. No footballer had ever done that before because nobody had ever thought of it. You would never think of dummying the goalkeeper like that because, at the time, it was just too off-the-wall.
If that was showboating, give me more showboating !
Panels of pundits were new and they had colourful personalities like Brian Clough, Malcolm Allison, Derek Dougan and Pat Crerand. Not the dull muppets they have now.
When Pele dummied that ball he also dummied millions fans watching it on TV and we were all gobsmacked by his audacity and inventiveness. Man City manager Malcolm Allison laughed so uproariously that he almost fell off his chair.
I knew Big Mal, having interviewed him for the university newspaper. His bonhomie had a quality which I can only call charisma and that came over on TV as well as in person. Big Mal was huge, handsome, funny and deeply in love with the game. He was very engaging, on and off screen. So that Pele dummy, and Big Mal’s enjoyment of it, remain a lifetime moment for yours truly.
Maybe Ronaldinho can give us one like that.
If not Ronaldinho, Kaka.