It’s an ugly ending for Brazil at World Cup
From Cape Town, South Africa — They looked nervous. They looked edgy. They looked angry. They looked nothing like the Brazilian teams that had proudly gone before them.
And finally in Port Elizabeth on Friday afternoon at the World Cup quarterfinals, the Selecao simply looked beaten.
At the final whistle of the 2-1 loss to the Netherlands, defender-turned-midfielder Dani Alves collapsed onto the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium grass, completely spent, physically and emotionally. Goalkeeper Julio Cesar was in tears.
Over near the Brazil bench, Coach Dunga stared grimly out at the celebrating Dutch and at his own disconsolate players and then turned and walked silently away.
So much for Dunga becoming only the third person in history to win a World Cup as a player and as a coach. Now, the only one who can do that at South Africa 2010 is Diego Maradona, of archrival Argentina, and even that depends on Maradona’s minions defeating Germany in Cape Town on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Brazilians, five-time world champions, are heading home, where a not particularly warm welcome will await them in Rio de Janeiro.
The knives will be out for Dunga, who chose pragmatism over flair and controversially left Ronaldinho off his roster. They will also be sharpened for the luckless Felipe Melo, whose own goal and red card contributed mightily to the downfall of the tournament favorites.
For the second World Cup in a row, the Selecao has fallen short of expectations, and the 2014 World Cup host now has less than four years to rebuild from scratch. But first there will be the autopsy.
In the meantime, the cheers can be heard from one end of Buenos Aires to the other. In fact, all across Argentina there are broad smiles and backslaps aplenty. The old enemy has been felled and Maradona’s players did not have to lift a hand to accomplish the feat.
The Netherlands, righting a host of perceived wrongs over the years, did it for them.
So, was Maradona overjoyed? No, not really.
“Well, that’s Brazil’s problem,” he said of the defeat. “I have other things on my mind at the moment. We’re just thinking about our own match.”
Of course, this came moments after Maradona had shared a joke with the orange-vested photographers in the room, telling them: “You’re all dressed in the Dutch colors.”
Friday’s victory erased all sorts of bad memories for the Netherlands, which was beaten by Brazil in the quarterfinals in the U.S. in 1994 and again, this time on penalty kicks, in the semifinals in France in 1998. Dunga captained both Brazilian teams.
This week, now as coach, Dunga traded barbs with former Dutch great Johan Cruyff, who said he would not pay to watch this collection of Brazilian players. Dunga shot back that Cruyff probably never had to pay for anything ever.
The argument was really about approach, about style, about the way the game should be played. The great Brazilian teams of old had it in spades. In Cruyff’s opinion, Dunga’s version was more a bunch of shovel-carriers.
Of course, the Dutch were equally industrial, it’s just that they were also a shade more determined Friday to get the result, with an inspired Wesley Sneijder leading the way.
For fans of beautiful, flowing football, with intricate passing moves interspersed with moments of unexpected creativity and invention, this was not the match to watch. It was fast-paced, yes, but it was more about hard tackles and hard work.
Dutch Coach Bert van Marwijk had said in the lead-up that “total football” of Cruyff’s era is dead. Cruyff had also long since buried it. Agreeing with both men was former Brazilian star striker Romario.
“Actually, Cruyff is right when he says football has no more magic,” Romario told Brazil’s O Globo newspaper. “Not only in Brazil but all over the world. No team has that much magic to call on.
“In his age and at the start of mine, there were five or six great players in each team. Today, no. Even in our 1994 team there wasn’t much magic. From 1990 up to here it started to become more difficult.”
That’s what the Ghanaians discovered Friday night in Johannesburg. The conquerors of the U.S. were desperately hoping for some magic after they had taken the lead against Uruguay, but then along came Diego Forlan, followed by the agony of penalty kicks, and the only trick was a vanishing act.
The last African team in the tournament is going home. Just like Brazil.
