FIFA World Cup : Brazil unimpressive, despite records

Despite a 3-0 win and while statisticians may be over the moon with Brazil’s “historic” win over Ghana here, critics were not so impressed with their overall performance.

The match will surely go down in history. Ronaldo broke Gerd Mueller’s all-time record of World Cup goals by netting his 15th in football’s most prestigious tournament; Adriano scored Brazil’s 200th; Cafu became the Brazilian player with most World Cup appearances - 19; and the win extended the defending champions’ streak of consecutive World Cup victories to 11. The tournament’s favourites planned to dazzle the world with “juego bonito”, but critics said there were few moments of “beautiful football”. In fact, Brazil gained a berth in the quarterfinals with minimal effort, settling on a waiting game and stinging inexperienced Ghana on the counter-attack.

Ronaldinho rarely shone and Adriano did little to live up to his fame as “the emperor” of football. Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira conceded as much after the match, but appeared unfazed. “History talks about champions, not about attractive football. Of course we’d like to play beautiful football, but more than that, we want to be world champions,” he told reporters. Parreira said the scoreline was “deceptive” and blamed his side’s less-than-spectacular performance on excessive zeal on the part of his players. “We played with haste rather than speed. Speed is when you play quickly and put moves together in a coordinated way. We should have kept hold of the ball more. Instead, our passing was sloppy,” Parreira said.

Playmaker Kaka was equally critical. “We are beginning to move the ball around midfield very well. But we still need to improve; we can do a lot better than we are doing at the moment,” he said. One man who was definitely satisfied with his performance was Ronaldo. The 29-year-old striker had been slammed as an overweight underperformer during the opening matches, but was able to silence the critics in Dortmund. “How do you make history? It takes a lot of hard work. It’s not easy.

You need to make a lot of sacrifices. This is the reward for my efforts over a number of years,” he said. Brazil now face France in the tournament’s quarterfinals. It is hard not to believe that Brazil will be thrilled by being offered the chance to avenge their humiliating 3-0 defeat in the 1998 World Cup final.

click to read all FEATURED ARTICLE

Send this article to a friend

Read all the news about: Soccer - Football