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More than any other factor, Brazilian football owes its worldwide prestige to the individual brilliance and creativity of its top players.
Take Leonidas and his bicycle kicks, Didi and his 'dry leaf' free-kicks, the amazing dribbles of Garrincha and the countless innovations of Pele.
So the Brazilian game has been having a long, hard look at itself in the past week as a result of the violent reaction to yet another local creation - Kerlon's so-called 'seal dribble'.
Nineteen-year-old Kerlon has developed an ability to flick the ball into the air and then run while balancing it on his forehead - a bit like a circus seal.
He first revealed the move some two-and-a-half-years ago in the South American Under-17 Championship.
He has had an injury-hit time since then, but is now starting to make the breakthrough in senior football as a second-half substitute for Cruzeiro of Belo Horizonte, currently second in the Brazilian league table.
Just over a week ago he unleashed the seal dribble in the big local derby against Atletico.
Opposing defender Coelho barged him to the ground, while other Atletico players screamed at him in anger.
Many people in the Brazilian game - including, it seems, national team coach Dunga, seem to think they were justified in their reaction.
How can this possibly be explained in the land traditionally viewed as the spiritual home of the beautiful game?
The answer touches on one of football's great truths; the game is indeed a universal language, but one which is spoken with different accents.
Different cultures find different things objectionable.
British players are liable to be angered by diving or by attempts to get an opponent sent off.
These practices are more widely accepted in Brazil as part of the game.
But if you want to start a war on a Brazilian pitch, a touch of ball juggling in the closing stages of a game your team is winning will quickly light the touch paper.
In a very hierarchical society, the player who comes up with a new trick is a pawn who has turned the tables and become a king
This will be seen as unpardonable provocation - and that is an explosive quantity on a Brazilian football field.
The noted Brazilian anthropologist Roberto da Matta has written that unlike European football, the game in his country "is a source of individual expression much more than an instrument of collectivisation".
He continued that it was a battle of "individual wills who seek to escape from the cycle of defeat and poverty".
In a very hierarchical society, the player who comes up with a new trick is a pawn who has turned the tables and become a king.
It perhaps helps explain why Brazilian football has come up with so many moments of individual genius - and also why those on the receiving end of the move feel especially humiliated.
Their personal defeat is being publicly rubbed into their nose.
Kerlon's problem is that his seal dribble is being viewed as a provocation.
Even if he unleashes it - as he usually does - on the way towards goal, with the objective of rounding the defence and getting in a shot - the defender feels that the whole thing has been done with the sole aim of making him look foolish.
It is for this reason that many in the game are of the view that he should never try the move when his team are winning. But there are others, especially in the media, who are arguing that while the sport continues to come up with such moments of individual flair, the game of football is winning.
Take Leonidas and his bicycle kicks, Didi and his 'dry leaf' free-kicks, the amazing dribbles of Garrincha and the countless innovations of Pele.
So the Brazilian game has been having a long, hard look at itself in the past week as a result of the violent reaction to yet another local creation - Kerlon's so-called 'seal dribble'.
Nineteen-year-old Kerlon has developed an ability to flick the ball into the air and then run while balancing it on his forehead - a bit like a circus seal.
He first revealed the move some two-and-a-half-years ago in the South American Under-17 Championship.
He has had an injury-hit time since then, but is now starting to make the breakthrough in senior football as a second-half substitute for Cruzeiro of Belo Horizonte, currently second in the Brazilian league table.
Just over a week ago he unleashed the seal dribble in the big local derby against Atletico.
Opposing defender Coelho barged him to the ground, while other Atletico players screamed at him in anger.
Many people in the Brazilian game - including, it seems, national team coach Dunga, seem to think they were justified in their reaction.
How can this possibly be explained in the land traditionally viewed as the spiritual home of the beautiful game?
The answer touches on one of football's great truths; the game is indeed a universal language, but one which is spoken with different accents.
Different cultures find different things objectionable.
British players are liable to be angered by diving or by attempts to get an opponent sent off.
These practices are more widely accepted in Brazil as part of the game.
But if you want to start a war on a Brazilian pitch, a touch of ball juggling in the closing stages of a game your team is winning will quickly light the touch paper.
In a very hierarchical society, the player who comes up with a new trick is a pawn who has turned the tables and become a king
This will be seen as unpardonable provocation - and that is an explosive quantity on a Brazilian football field.
The noted Brazilian anthropologist Roberto da Matta has written that unlike European football, the game in his country "is a source of individual expression much more than an instrument of collectivisation".
He continued that it was a battle of "individual wills who seek to escape from the cycle of defeat and poverty".
In a very hierarchical society, the player who comes up with a new trick is a pawn who has turned the tables and become a king.
It perhaps helps explain why Brazilian football has come up with so many moments of individual genius - and also why those on the receiving end of the move feel especially humiliated.
Their personal defeat is being publicly rubbed into their nose.
Kerlon's problem is that his seal dribble is being viewed as a provocation.
Even if he unleashes it - as he usually does - on the way towards goal, with the objective of rounding the defence and getting in a shot - the defender feels that the whole thing has been done with the sole aim of making him look foolish.
It is for this reason that many in the game are of the view that he should never try the move when his team are winning. But there are others, especially in the media, who are arguing that while the sport continues to come up with such moments of individual flair, the game of football is winning.
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