The Hindu : Hurray for Ronaldo and Brazil

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 03, 2002

Sport

Sport - Football

Hurray for Ronaldo and Brazil

By Brian Glanville

Star Brazilian forward Ronaldo, who, according to the author, was largely responsible for raising the 2002 World Cup Finals above mediocrity. — AFP

Well, Ronaldo and Brazil saved this largely mediocre tournament in the end. For Ronaldo it was a romantic story. Four years of misery after that ghastly experience in the 1998 Final when he never should have played and might even gave lost his life in doing so.

Followed by these seasons of utter misery, he succumbed to one bad injury after another till his whole career seemed in jeopardy.

From the moment — against Costa Rica, a game I saw — Ronaldo was able to play full games for Brazil everything changed, even though they had such a shaky defence and should really have gone down to England when they had only 10 men on the field for 32 minutes of the second-half. Luckily for them, England and Eriksson had neither the wit nor the skill to make anything of the advantage. Any more you could say than the Irish did when up against 10 Spaniards for the whole half- hour of extra-time in Suwon.

It might almost have seemed as if the ghost of 1998 were haunting Ronaldo in that first-half when he wantonly threw away the chance so elegantly made for him by the ebullient little Ronaldinho, a new star indeed in the world firmament, missed another which you might have expected him to take and then was thwarted by Oliver Kahn.

But things went wonderfully right in the second-half and though Kahn would horribly blot a clean copy book on that first Brazilian goal, look at the way Ronaldo brought it about by taking the ball away from Dietmar Hamann as though he were a terrier of the midfield.

So for Brazil and you might say football at large the competition ended happily ever after; to the extent that the ``beautiful game'' prevailed, even if so much of the credit has gone so gratuitously to Big Phil Scolari, who has never been one for beautiful football and was not afraid to say so even before the Final was played. The blessing of it all was that with the 3 Rs — Ronaldo, Rivelino and Ronaldinho — on the field he just couldn't stop them playing dazzling football.

That Germany got to the Final at all was a dire judgement on the competition, though in fairness it must be said that had Michael Ballack been able to play rather than being suspended, things might have improved for them. For much of that first-half they actually made the running though they did not create a single real chance; no shots or headers on goal. This didn't begin to happen till early in the second-half when little Oliver Neuville, for me easily the pick of the German attackers, let fly that fierce free kick which cannoned back off a post.

I watched Miroslav Klose head his three goals against feeble Saudi Arabia but thereafter he had a thin time of it and the ex-Scottish international and now TV commentator Alan Hansen was probably right to say that Klose was less a spearhead than a second striker. What would Germany and Rudi Voeller, prowling the touchline in despair, have given for Voeller himself to be ten years younger and leading that line! No Klinsmann Riedle or Rummenigge in sight any more. Still, give the Germans credit for riding their luck — not least the handball on the line by Torsten Frings against the Americans from which they escaped — and getting as far as they did though I still have to say it was by default.

Rumours will no doubt swirl on about the refereeing and linesman decision which were levelled against the South Koreans, above all the Spaniards and Italians. As one who has spent years investigating the corruption of European referees with some success, I have to say that while bribery cannot wholly be discounted, no evidence of it has yet been advanced; and that's where the hard part comes in.

Meanwhile I don't recall any such talk after a far worse decision than any of these when Diego Maradona was able to get away with his `Hand of God' goal against England in the Azteca stadium in 1986. Moreover, whatever the rights or wrongs of the Italian and Spanish cases they should be ashamed of themselves that they didn't beat the South Koreans in any event. And shame on Frandisco Totti and his fellow Italians of smashing up their dressing room after the game. England didn't do that in 1986.

Oliver Kahn was voted best keeper of the tournament presumably before his blunder in the Final. Personally I would have voted for the gallant Turk Rustu, who looked excellent even when injured in the third place game or big Brad Friedel of the U.S.A, who saved two penalties and so many other shots besides. I wonder how many of these Americans will not find their way to Europe.

And whether the quick elusive little Ahn of South Korea will stay at Ferugia now the blowhard President Luciano Gaucci has changed his mind about exiling him for daring to score the winner against Italy.

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