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Soccer: Brazil's workers beat Argentina's artists
By Rob Hughes
Monday, July 16, 2007
Brazil is again champion of Latin American soccer, but no longer champion of the Beautiful Game.
By rubbing out Argentina, 3-0, in the Copa America final Sunday in Maracaibo, in the north of Venezuela, Brazil left no room for doubt which of the continent's two giants deserved the victory.
By clamping a straitjacket on Argentina's greater flair, by proving bigger in muscle, might and mind, this new Brazil completed a transition begun 30 years ago to change the basic nature of its game.
The sacrifice will be felt later when Brazil, the darling of global marketers, has nothing to sell but its efficiency. The game's most profitable sponsorship is Nike's affiliation with the carnival joy espoused by Brazilians on the field. The Sunday triumph was built on the suppression of that joy.
"We came to rescue the self-esteem of the Brazilian worker," said Dunga, the coach and master of this change of method. "The worker who wakes up in the morning and returns home late at night and whose only satisfaction in life is seeing Brazil win a soccer match."
Dunga, the hard midfield ball winner of the 1994 World Cup winning side, has turned his national squad from memorable players who flattered but failed into a group of men who sacrifice for the collective. There are artisans but few artists. Dunga can speak for the workers of Brazil because he fills his team with them.
The victory Sunday nailed the theory that Argentina could, by stealing the mantle of the team that plays the Beautiful Game, carry through its mission to the end. After five victories and 16 goals at this Copa, the Argentines believed - and made us all believe - that the more pure footballers on the team the better.
Yet on the biggest stage, and not for the first time, Argentina went limp. Juan Riquelme, the star of this tournament with his amalgam of two-footed invention, gilded free kicks and eye for goal, froze.
Lionel Messi, the impish Pimpernel who inspires comparisons to Diego Maradona, was a little boy lost. Carlos Tévez, about to make his move to Manchester United, ran into brick walls clad in the yellow shirts of Brazil.
"Argentina was the press's and everyone's favorite," Dunga said. "But the game is decided on the field over 90 minutes."
He is right, the score brooks no argument.
His philosophy is true to his roots. Dunga, born Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, is of German-Italian lineage, and what we witnessed Sunday was the culmination of decades of Brazilian coaches determined to shift the game toward Europe.
Where Claudio Coutinho, a former Brazilian Army captain, and his coaching disciples in the 1970s failed was in the reality that the country's players still wanted to be Pelé, Garrincha, Gérson, Carlos Alberto, the free spirits who burned their style into the minds of fans the world over.
Dunga has succeeded in his first tournament as coach because there are now 800 Brazilian players abroad, the vast majority of them already Europeanized by the clubs who pay their fortunes.
So, if Kaká and Ronaldinho, the two most identifiable Brazilians, told Dunga they were too tired to take part in his Copa, that almost fell into his scheme of things.
He replaced them with Vagner Love, with Julio Baptista, with Mineiro, Josué, Elano.
Who are they? The willing workers.
Yes, there was one individual, one token reminder of the Brazilian spirit, in Robinho. But he, despite finishing as the tournament's top scorer, was peripheral in the final. In the final his role was to drop deep, to augment a midfield heavily massed to squeeze out Riquelme's plotting.
In one department - the crucial one - Brazil excelled. Barely a shot was wasted as the team hit on the break and scored with three of four attempts on goal.
Baptista, discarded by Real Madrid and then by Arsenal, scored first, a fantastic goal of mighty opportunism. From Elano's long diagonal pass, he was allowed by a hesitant Roberto Ayala to step one pace to his right and then thrash the ball with awesome power into the top far corner of the net.
Ayala, the most capped man in Argentine soccer history, compounded his error by sliding in an own-goal when bamboozled by a teasing pass from Daniel Alves. Then Alves, brought on as a substitute and relishing the space on the right flank, finished with a low, precise, instinctive shot from an angle that looked forbiddingly acute.
Two goals out of three were of the highest quality. The other was induced by a cunning pass.
Why complain? There are other data that tell the story.
Brazil committed 37 fouls - and Riquelme hit 37 free kicks onto the heads of the huge Brazilian central defenders Alex and Juan. Only Riquelme, with such a repertoire of free kicks at his command, knows why he repeated this folly, this waste. Surely he could see that Tévez and Messi are midgets compared with the Brazilian rear guard?
The answer probably lies in the way Mineiro tracked Riquelme's every move, dogged him, pulled him and tapped him. Riquelme, taken off at the World Cup as Argentina struggled to cope with German muscle, was also denied twice. He struck a post in the first half, and Doni, the Brazil goalkeeper, made the game's most spectacular save off him in the second.
Doni had earlier, soon after halftime, shamelessly become the first of three Brazilians accepting yellow cards for time wasting. Two players on each side were also cautioned for fouls born of Brazil's intent and Argentina's frustration.
If Dunga is right, there is a smile on the face of Brazilian workers, and the win-at-all-costs mentality justifies itself. Tactically, and psychologically, he got the final spot on.
"We're totally ruined," Esteban Cambiasso, one of Argentina's overrun midfield, confessed. "Losing like this hurts your soul."
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