Brazil are one of the favourites who have got off to a bad start at the World Cup. That is partly because the so-called smaller nations have belief but also because of Neymar’s strugglesThe most striking aspect of the opening week of this World Cup has surely been the difficulty many of the tournament favourites have had to win their games. Something has changed. And the key words here are “intensity” and “belief”.Smaller nations now believe in their capacity to cause problems and to challenge the traditional powers of world football. I was struck, for example, by the terrible disappointment of the Tunisians after losing to England. These so-called smaller nations really have the belief they can do something against...
Saudia Arabia are 2,000-1, but the chances are one of the top six in the bookies’ odds will lift the World Cup on 15 JulyHow do you build a team around a player without being reliant on him? The tightrope that Jorge Sampaoli has to tread with Lionel Messi is made of a spider’s silk but if he manages to strike the right balance this could be Argentina’s time. It is 32 years since they won the World Cup, 25 since they won a major tournament, an implausibly barren run for a generation that has included some of football’s great talents. Ángel Di María and Paulo Dybala could do with stepping up to help Messi, as they can, but have...
Germany conjured football of a savagery unwitnessed against significant opposition in the tournament’s historyWhen it comes to the World Cup, hosting is supposed to help. Just ask Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934), England (1966), West Germany (1974), Argentina (1978) and France (1998), or Sweden (1958), Chile (1962) and South Korea (2002), who unexpectedly finished second, third and fourth, respectively. Rival teams should be cowed by the passion and the number of home fans, the hosts buoyed.Not this time. “You looked at the faces of the Brazilian players when they walked on the pitch during the World Cup and it looked like they were about to compete in the Hunger Games,” said Zico, great Brazilian midfielder of the 1970s and 80s. “They...
The right-back was unknown, uncapped and unemployed before scoring two monstrous goals – but his fairytale became a cautionary taleIn the summer of 1964, England took part in the Little World Cup in Brazil. It was a simple four-team league involving Portugal, Argentina and the hosts. England finished joint-bottom with Portugal. In their first match they were plugged 5-1 by Brazil in Rio. They commiserated with a night on the town, and were staggering around Copacabana beach the following morning when they were challenged to a game by some local kids.It was an embarrassing mismatch: the England team, two years away from winning the Big World Cup, got absolutely slaughtered for the third time in 18 hours. Admittedly it was...
The French celebrated a historic home victory while the rest of the world wondered what had happened to the previously imperious Ronaldo as he sleepwalked through the finalAs the Brazilian national anthem floated around the Stade de France, the camera kept lingering on one man. His identity was not a surprise. Ronaldo, after all, was the greatest player in the world, O Fenomeno, the star of a Brazil team that was hoping to become the first to retain the World Cup on two separate occasions. Nothing unusual about that, you might think; television prefers to focus on the talent and in 1998, no one was as ferociously talented as Ronaldo, whose supernatural mixture of power, pace and skill had made...