WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FINALS : Yester-Yearning : To Spoiled Fans of the Beautiful Game, Brazil of Today Is Simply Winning Ugly

It would be going too far to suggest that U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic was satisfied after his team’s 1-0 loss in the second round of the 1994 World Cup. But neither was he dissatisfied. Considering the opponent that July 4 afternoon at Stanford Stadium, who could have asked for more?

“Brazil,” he said, “is Brazil.”

As he made that remark, intended as the supreme compliment to one of the world’s preeminent soccer powers, one could feel the breeze as far away as Palo Alto as 150 million Brazilians shook their heads in dissent.

This Brazil team might be the best in the world today. This Brazil team might win the World Cup with a victory over Italy on Sunday in the championship game at the Rose Bowl. But this Brazil team, critics from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro declare, is not Brazil.

Translation: This is not the Brazil of Pele, not the Brazil that retired the Jules Rimet Trophy with three World Cup titles between 1958-70 and not the Brazil of jogo bonito, the beautiful game.

This team, the critics claim, is masquerading as Brazil, and for that Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has been apportioned most of the blame. On Wednesday at the Rose Bowl, where Brazil beat Sweden, 1-0, to advance to the final for the first time in 24 years, he was the object of derisive whistles and boos during pregame introductions and again whenever his picture was displayed on the stadium’s big screen.

Parreira’s most ardent defender has been Mario Zagalo, the 62-year-old assistant who had to be physically restrained from attacking fans who jeered the coach at the airport upon the team’s return home from a loss at Bolivia last year.

More than anyone else, Zagalo can empathize with Parreira. During an interview at the team’s Fullerton headquarters Tuesday, Zagalo recalled the second-guessing he withstood as head coach of the 1970 team, considered by many to be the best to play in the World Cup.

“The pressure hasn’t changed,” he said. “It’s just that there are more people now. We had 90 million people in Brazil in 1970. Today, we have 150 million. In other words, there were 90 million Brazilian coaches then, 150 million today.”

Parreira, 51, has complained that his critics are living in the past, failing to accept the realities of today’s soccer.

One is that Pele is retired, never to return. Another is that more countries play the sport well than in 1970, when Brazil outscored its opponents, 19-7, and was held to fewer than three goals only once in six games. It won the championship game over Italy, 4-1.

“The distance between us and the other teams is much smaller,” he said this week. “There is no gulf anymore.”

And another reality is that the game, for better or worse, has evolved defensively, rendering the uninhibited, free-flowing offensive advances virtually obsolete. Teams in this World Cup have seemed particularly intent on preventing Brazil from displaying its panache, retreating so vigorously that they all but forfeit any chances of their own to score. In six games, only 42 shots have been fired at the Brazilians.

“We have a saying in Brazil that if only one person comes to fight, you can’t have a fight,” Parreira said after a first-round 1-1 tie with Sweden in which the opponents tried only four shots. They were not even that bold in the semifinal rematch, attempting only three.

The Brazilians tried for two decades to resist the tide, leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattacks in one World Cup disappointment after another. Then they overcompensated in 1990 with Coach Sebastiao Lazaroni’s defensive posture, which included the use of a European-style sweeper.

“No more jogo bonito ,” midfielder Dunga proclaimed. “This is the Brazil of sweat and sacrifice.”

It also was the Brazil that scored only four goals in four games and was eliminated in the second round by Argentina.

When Parreira became the coach, he promised that Brazil would be a team of sweat and sacrifice and jogo bonito .

Whether Brazil wins or loses Sunday, many experts--outside Brazil--will agree that Parreira has done everything he can to achieve that blend with the talent he has.

He has fielded a team on which marvelous strikers such as Romario and Bebeto can coexist with gritty midfielders such as Dunga, Zinho and Mauro Silva; and on which central defenders Aldair and Marcio Santos hold their ground so steadfastly that the left and right backs, Branco and Jorginho, can make frequent forays into the offensive end.

“The past five World Cups we have been favorites, and where have we finished?” Parreira asked before the tournament.

Not waiting for a reply, he said: “Nowhere. Balance will win this World Cup.” That balance has produced 11 goals and given up only three.

Despite Parreira’s efforts, this team is not likely to be remembered as one of the best--or even one of Brazil’s best--because of its uncharacteristic inability to maneuver the ball through the midfield.

Although the team’s playmaking No. 10, Rai, was considered as recently as two years ago as one of the world’s best, he slumped in recent months to the extent that polls in Brazil revealed that fans there did not even want him selected to the team.

“It’s true, we lack creativity,” Parreira said in May. “I look, but I don’t find it. The fact is, Brazil today doesn’t have a great No. 10 jersey any more, like a Rivelino, an Ademir da Guia or a Zico. Zico was the last. Give me one, and I’ll put him on the team right now.”

When no one stepped forward, Parreira started Rai in the first three games but benched him in favor of Mazinho before the second round. Mazinho has not been entirely satisfactory, and Romario, who prefers to plant himself in the penalty area and wait for the ball, has had to make expeditions into the midfield to search for it.

Romario and Bebeto have combined for eight goals, but, with their scoring touch, they might have recorded spectacular numbers if they had someone to get them the ball.

So perhaps historians will not fawn over these Brazilians. But if they win the World Cup, perhaps their fans at home finally will.