Selecao Brasiliero and the FIFA World Cup Football

Brasil and the World Cup


Seleçao Brasiliero and The FIFA World Cup

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This article shall be on the subject that we have mutually been most passionate. It shall be about the correlation between the FIFA world cup with Brazilian national football team and its history in the making up until today in the year of our Great Lord 2008.

Brazil is the only national side that has always qualified and participated in all 18-world cups since its commencement and has won an unprecedented 5-world championships. Trailing in 2nd and 3rd are Germany and Italia both with 3 titles respectively.

The Brazilian has been playing the beautiful game throughout the years and I for one am an aficionado.

Introduction
Brazilian FA namely Confederacao Brasiliero de Futebol better known as CBF is undoubtedly the most successful football association in the world. Five- time world champions and the most decorated national side in World Football today. In local lingo they call it penta or wrote the year 1958-1962-1970-1994-2002 based on their past champion
ship-winning years. Aside from winning the trophy five times, Brazil also won twice as runner-up in 1950 and 1998 as well as twice came in third place in 1938 and 1978.

Back in its heyday, a certain Mr. Charles Miller a young Englishman whose father was stationed in Sao Paulo colonial trading company initially introduced football in 1894 upon returning from his education in England. As was everywhere else globally, the game took on, and one after the other people took to the game and early clubs in Brazil flourishes and the fever was spread everywhere.

Initially the clubs in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were established before everywhere else in Brazil for being the epicenters of Brasilian life and cultural development. Most renowned Carioca sides are Flamengo, Vasco da Gama and Botafogo while most prominent Paulista sides are Sao Paulo, Corinthians and Santos.

Meanwhile the Brazilian football association i.e. the CBF was founded in 1914, twenty years after the young Miller initially teach them the rules and regulations. The first recorded official match was between Brazil and an English club Exeter City, which later for her 100th birthday respectfully played the Brazilian all star and made world headlines. For such a humble club playing in amateur league, that was quite a feat but it also shows that the Brazilian have a great respect on the influence of Englishmen on their introduction to the game.

CBF join the South American CONMEBOL football confederation in 1914 and in-time to play Copa America for the first time as well as the Libertadores Cup for club championship to present day. Later on in 1919 Brazil started winning the first of their seven overall Copa America titles.
Afterward in 1923 Brazil join FIFA world football governing body and they were one of the participants on the opening of FIFA world cup in 1930.

Earlier Times: 1930 – 1938
FIFA itself was founded in 1904 and 2 years before the initial world cup in Uruguay 1930 the new regulation stipulated that the winner shall be awarded a trophy which was named Jules Rimet cup based on the name of third president of FIFA.

Uruguay was South American CONMEBOL football confederation candidate for host nation. After many debates as to which nation was deemed the best venue, votes were taken. All South American rallied solidly for Uruguayan nomination while the European was torn between several factions. Naturally Uruguay won the nomination and became the first world cup host.

For the next world cup in 1934, Italia nominated itself and this time the whole European factions unites behind its campaign led by il duce Benito Mussolini himself.
Just before WWII France tried their luck to win the world cup believing that FIFA was founded in their backyard and it was high time that they win the trophy.

1. 1930 – Uruguay
The first world cup was held in Uruguay. The biggest crowd in that competition gathers for the game between the host Uruguay and her neighbor Argentina. At least 35,000 people made the trip across the river plate from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. Uruguay won that game as well as the competition and crowned the first FIFA world football champion.

Brazil under coach Pindaro de Carvalho only played 2 games there in the 1st round. Brazil lost the first one to Yugoslavia 1-2 and won 4-0 against Bolivia.

2. 1934 – Italy
The Italian won the 1934 contest. The matches were played in Rome and naturally full of unfairness from referees and linesmen, naturally enough results yielded benefit to the host. Most protest and complaints were conveniently ignored.

Benito Mussolini the Italian dictator paid close scrutiny to the matches and especially after his beloved Lazio players, a big portion of his national team.

Brazilian national team only played a game here in the 1st round and lost that game 1-3 to Spain.

3. 1938 – France
The last competition before WWII was the third world cup held in Paris in 1938. The French believed that they should have the biggest chance of winning the competition since the initial two world cups were won by the host nation. Instead, this time the Italian came with a better team and won the game for the second time in front of the city that was facing ominous war.

Brazil was represented with a much-reinforced team that fielded an exciting new player named Leonidas who won top scorer and led the Brazilian to the 3rd place.
They beat Poland 6-5 in the 1st round and then passed Czechoslovakia 2-1 after a draw a few days back in the quarterfinal. Unfortunately in the semifinal they were beaten by the eventual winner Italia 1-2 but in the end manage to salvage a 3rd place by beating Sweden 4-2.

After The War: 1950 –1954
This was the period where everybody resumes playing football instead of killing each other. Five years after the second world war, members of FIFA which now base herself in Zurich agreed to celebrate a new world cup to fulfill that idea.

Brazil which was largely unaffected by the war and whose nation was benefited since they eventually sided with the victorious allies in the war, obliged to be the host. It was decided that a South American nation should be appointed as the host because Europe was largely a war zone and then in horrendous ruin.

Four years after that, Switzerland - a neutral country right in the heart of Europe hosted the next world cup because needless to say their country was minimally affected by the war in physical sense.

4. 1950 – Brazil
The first game after WWII was played in Brazil.
England and Unites States were among 16 nations competing for the cup. The famous stadium Maracana in Rio was filled full capacity with more than 200,000 people chanting full support for the Brazilian national team who made it to the final to face Uruguay their tiny neighbor to the south.

In the first round, Brazil beat Mexico 4-0, drawn Switzerland 2-2, and then qualified by beating Yugoslavia 2-0. In the final round they overcame Sweden 7-1 and Spain 6-1. But in the grand final unpredictably Brazil was beaten 1-2 by Uruguay with the deciding goal came from Schiaffino of Penarol Montevideo. The Brazilians were devastated when the team and its star player Ademir were denied chance after chance by the brilliant Uruguayan defense. To the Brazilian, this world cup final was remembered as a national day of infamy as is still told in songs and wrote in reference in journals even today.

5. 1954 – Switzerland
Switzerland‘s 1954 marked the year when German (then Federal Republic of Germany – West Germany) rises from the ashes of WWII and won the competition as their sign of revival. West Germany’s team led by Fritz Walter won their first world cup in Berne.

All Germans back home in their country to the north who’s unable to attend the game were listening to the games on the radio and fallen to tears when the final game was ended in their triumph over Czechoslovakia in front of the packed stadium.

Brazilian team was still in tatters after their big failure four years earlier. Trained by Zeze Moreira, Brazil qualified by beating Chile 2-0 and 1-0 followed by beating Paraguay 1-0 and 4-1 on home and away basis. In the alp country, Brazil beat Mexico 5-0 and drawn 1-1 against Yugoslavia. Their campaign was cut short in quarterfinal where they played a brutal game that ended in a 2-4 loss to Hungary that was remembered for the fight that marred the largest part of that match. The match degraded so viciously that both teams almost went free for all in front of a stunned crowd and in the end the referee stopped the match altogether ahead of time.

Beautiful Game, Jogo Bonito: 1958 – 1970
In four FIFA world cup competitions between 1958 and 1970, Brazil won the championship 3 times (1958, 1962 and 1970) while the other one went to England when they played host in 1966.

The Jules Rimet cup was rewarded permanently for those three Brazilian victories. This was the golden period where prized diamonds such as Pele, Garrincha, Gerson, Rivelino, Amarildo, Jairzinho, the two Santos, Didi, Vava and Zagallo captured world headlines and their triumphs reverberated through out the entire world.

The period was known as Jogo Bonito and was universally recognized to be the renaissance period where the game was played by artists and the result was precious masterpieces.

6. 1958 – Sweden
Brazilian squad under Vicente Feola was a team that includes a specific 17-year-old named Edson Arantes dõ Nascimento usually called simply by Pele. This youngster enchanted all spectators as well as the television viewers everywhere and the global radio listeners throughout the entire world who tuned to the radio commentators describing his exquisite skills. World football would remember this birth of her most beloved darlings of icons.

Brazil qualified by beating Peru on aggregate after a home away record of 1-1 and 1-0. In the first round Brazil overcome Austria 3-0, held to a 0-0 draw by England and followed by beating the Soviet Union 2-0. Next Brazil defeated Wales 1-0 in the quarterfinal and then France with their Just Fountaine 5-2 in the semifinal to advance to the big match in Rasunda.

The grand final was between Brazil and the host nation Sweden. The Brazilian won comfortably by 5-2 and the celebrated new king Pele has started his legend and he would rule the world football for a golden period of just over 20 years.

We notice that Brazilian victory in 1958 was achieved in European soil and not the Americas. Prior to this no other Americas side has ever managed to win any of the world cup played outside the Americas -likewise none of the European side ever won their title outside of Europe.

Later Brazil would win the only world cup played outside of the Americas and Europe (South Korea – Japan 2002). This shows that Brazil victory in 1958 and later 2002 were a mark of true legendary geniuses.

7. 1962 – Chile
That year just months before the competition was to be held in Santiago, the south east Pacific Rim capital was rocked by a terrible earthquake that killed a lot of people mostly from the ensuing firing inferno.

The Brazilian without their king Pele out through injury in the first game against Mexico, let their replacing channel striker Amarildo highlighted the ‘4-2-4’ format favored by the Brazilian and achieve their second victory back to back.

The squad was managed by Aimore Moreira and qualified automatically as the defending world champion. The best player in the 1962 competition was the brilliant right-winger Garrincha and people would still argue that he is the best footballer ever, even better than the King himself.

In first round Brazil passed Mexico 2-0, held to a 0-0 draw by Czechoslovakia and then defeated Spain by 2-1. They overcame England 3-1 in the quarterfinal and later on crush their helpless host Chile 4-2 in the semifinal in front of vicious home crowd.
Finally they overwhelmed Czechoslovakia 3-1 in an excellent final match in Santiago de Chile to take their second FIFA world cup crown.

8. 1966 – England
The squad once again was led by Vicente Feola and automatically qualified for the second time in four years being the defending world champion. Unfortunately they were stopped in the first round with a record of a single win to Bulgaria 2-0 and 2 defeats i.e. losses of 1-3 to Hungary and 1-3 to Portugal. The Hungarian led by Ferenc Puskas applied brutal tackles to Pele and suppress the Brazilian with what could only be categorized as violence.

The Portuguese players at that quarterfinal similarly assaulted Pele time after time until he was carried on a stretcher out of the pitch, severely tackled to injury and brutalized. He would spend years afterwards to recuperate from his horrendous injuries.

This way the writer personally does not acknowledged Eusebio and Puskas star statuses for they and their respective team acquired it with brutal tactics among other good qualities they might have instead of pure brilliance.

Here Pele stated that he would not compete in another world cup because of all the unfairness in England 1966, but would later revoke his pledge and led the victorious Brazilian to bring home the golden goddess in Mexico 1970.

The English team won this tournament after beating Germany 4-2 in the final with a hotly debated 3rd English goal by Geoff Hurst. Some people mostly the English supporters said the ball deflected from the upright fall inside the goal line – while the others mostly German said the ball had never cross the line at anytime of the incident.

9. 1970 – Mexico
This is the finest world cup triumph ever. Mario Zagallo, the illustrious Brazilian Lebanese international left-winger took over as squad trainer.

Their qualification record was as follows i.e. 2-0 and 6-2 against Colombia, 5-0 and 6-0 against Venezuela and 3-0 and 1-0 against Paraguay. All six matches were home-away fixtures in Latin America.

In Mexico 1970’s first round Brazil beat Czechoslovakia 4-2, defeated England 1-0 and got the better of Rumania 3-2.
Facing them in the quarterfinal was Peru that they overcame by 4-2 and then they defeated Uruguay 3-1 in the semifinal to get to the big match.

In case we fail to recognize both finalist’s standings in the grand final, both Italia or Brazil have the chance to bring the trophy permanently to their home country for each had respectively 2 world cup championship under their belt. Therefore the final was probably a never to be repeated event.

That final was between the Italian team led by AC Milan’s Gigi Riva fresh from defeating Germany, playing against the Brazilian team with their returning king Pele leading his nation to their third FIFA world cup triumph. Finally in the best final ever staged on the world cup, Brazil annihilated Italia 4-1 and brought the Jules Rimet back to Rio de Janeiro forever.

A sad note here stated that the golden goddess was stolen while in display at Rio in 1983 and was melted by the thieves thus cannot be recovered. Therefore the Brazilian ordered a replica and was put in place of the original at their CBF headquarters.


Ultra Defensive: 1974 –1990
An ultra defensive system means that the team played defense most of the time and look for an occasional counter attack far in between to score and hopefully end a match on the winning side. This system was developed to handle the Brazilian attacking prowess that culminate with their 1970 triumph in Mexico.

Most nations then played this system and modify it according to their ability and traditional style of play. Germany developed the libero 3-5-2 schemes, the Dutch played with total football, the Italian build their cattenacio padlock ultra defense and the Argentineans fielded a deeply defensive 4-4-2.

Most of the time more to the disgust to wide world fans, teams utilized cowardly time wasting routine such as repeated back pass to keeper, brutal fouling from behind to sacrifice cards rather any goals and wasting time on dead ball situations. Here was the period where football lost its charm to the world and registered a lot of boring goalless draws.

10. 1974 – Germany
A modern time started at this world cup. Triumph of the more sophisticated defensive design and the start of Holland’s total football designed by the genius Rinus Michels mark this period and led at the field by their captain and playmaker Johann Cruyff. Total football is a format where all forwards also have sweeper duties on their defensive line to bolster their barricade protecting their goalmouth.

Until 1970’s cup, the more offensive team won the matches, but this subsequent period was best remembered for the career ending brutal tackles and repeated cowardly back passes from defenders to goalkeepers to kill the time. Teams would to look for the off chance to score goal and after 1-0 just resume back to waiting for the other team to attack and look for a counter strike for a chance to gain their winning. This way most of the matches are boring and the crowd groans when time wasting becoming too apparent to safe guard defense.

This world cup also started the traditional 3-5-2 setup favored by the German with the famous libero or playmaker as the fifth man in the middle of each flank. German’s playmaker Franz Beckenbauer was best remembered by his seemingly effortless play in the middle of the field. One instance he would lead defense and the next lead the offense on corresponding end of the field. They manage to control the speed and rhythm of the match by calculated faults and time wasting.
The final game was played in Munich where the German beat the Netherlands’s total football scheme with a 3-2 final score line.

Brazil again under Zagallo qualified automatically for the competition as the defending champion. In the first round they draw 0-0 with Yugoslavia and then again 0-0 with Scotland. They only manage to pass that first round after beating Zaire 3-0.
In the second round Brazil overcame East Germany by 1-0, beat Argentina 2-1 in quarterfinal big match but lost 0-2 to the Netherlands in the semis. They lost all drive all together and lost even the third place after being defeated 0-1 by Poland.

11. 1978 – Argentina
The year was marked by the military coup that brutally overthrow the argentine’s civil administration of Juan Peron et al.

Dubiously the Soviet Union’s protested the junta’s atrocious method in eliminating descendant and supporters of Peron and his socialist party, disregarding their own far worst atrocities everywhere else, the Communist Russian would not play in the national stadium citing it as killing ground of thousands of people in the clean up period.

Argentinean team preparing for this competition was conveniently quarantined in an isolated compound outside the capital, ensuring them total focus on their job at hand. The manager’s Cesar Luis Menotti fielded a defensive modified 4-4-2 format using Passarela and Bertoni at the heart of defense and looking for Kempes and Luque to score at the intervening counter attack. Gallego and Ardilles played important roles on supplying crosses while the overall defense tried to win the ball by hard tackles and occasional help from the referee and apparently the Peruvian national squad and then FIFA regulation committee. The host nation national team won the world cup in the end by beating the Netherlands 3-1.

Claudio Coutinho led team Brazil sent to their neighboring country. Earlier in qualifier, Brazil played 0-0 and 6-0 with Colombia, played 1-0 and 1-1 against Paraguay, beat Peru by 1-0 and annihilated Bolivia 8-0.

In Argentina, Brazil played the first round to a 1-1 draw versus Sweden, drawn 0-0 again to Spain and just beat Austria by 1-0. In second round, Brazil beat Peru 3-0, drawn 0-0 against the host Argentina and beat Poland by 3-1.

Because Brazil had already beat Poland by 3-1, Argentina need a better goal difference to advance to the final as opposed to Brazil due to the fact that both were on the same points. Who would have thought that Peru would open their net and gladly be on the end of a 0-7 trashing by the Argentineans? This was the only time Brazil ever stopped in their route to the grand final without ever being actually defeated on the field. At least in Argentina 1978 they salvaged the 3rd place by beating Italia 2-1.

Most notable outcome of this world cup is a major rule change in the system of playing all related round robin matches on a same time and afterwards conducting elimination matches from 2nd round and onwards in order to prevent match fixing and recurrence of the Argentine scam over Brazil.

12. 1982 – Spain
This competition was won by the Italian catennacio padlock scheme. Aside from a single forward, every able-bodied Italian was detailed to the defense. The padlock means that if one defender was beaten then the next defender in line has to win the ball viciously or else back-up defender has to bring the opponent down and sacrifice a yellow card.

Enzo Bearzot utilized his back-four and 3 midfielders to bolster up a fortress of chain like interconnecting defense. Hard tackling and solid collaboration between the players proved the winner in this competition. The Italians become so skillful in their defensive tactics that they can elude referee’s booking on faulting others.

Their defensive skills were so sophisticated that even opposing player often only found out about their bumps and bruises on their morning shower the following day. Cruelest among the Italians defender was the Libyan Italian Juventus player Claudio Gentile.

Coached by Tele Santana, Brazil sent the most famous side to ever play the world cup without ever actually winning it, including the most coveted midfielders quartet at the time with Zico, Socrates, Falcao and Cerezo.

Brazil qualified by playing 0-1 and 5-0 with Venezuela, then played 2-1 and 3-1 with Bolivia. In Spain 1982, Brazil beat the Soviet Union by 2-1, overpowered Scotland 4-1 and overcame New Zealand 4-0 to pass the first round.
For the second round, Brazil beat the defending world champion Argentina by 3-1 with Maradona red carded in that game for repeatedly kicking Zico in the shin. But the Brazilian was most unfortunate by being beaten by the negative playing Italian 2-3 with double tap-ins from the eventual world champion that year Paolo Rossi and his hard tackling Italians.

13. 1986 – Mexico
This is the world cup of Diego Armando Maradona. The diminutive and stoat argentine midfielder was instrumental in winning this world cup. It was the second time that the games were played in Mexico and ended when Argentina beat Germany by 3-2 in the Azteca stadium in Mexico City. Characteristically the Argentine captain also score a goal by his left hand that he claimed was the hand of God to the disgust of many Television viewers.

Meanwhile the Brazilian fans really like what Tele Santana done with the squad in 1982 and they believe that the fact that they were knock out by Italia was outright unlucky, so they give Santana another chance in 1986. He brought basically the same squad with minor adjustment of a few younger players.

Brazil qualified by playing 2-0 and 1-1 with Bolivia and playing 2-0 and 1-1 with Paraguay. In Mexico’s first round Brazil beat Spain 1-0, defeat Algeria 1-0 and thump Northern Ireland 3-0. Next, Brazil thwarted Poland 4-0. Just as luck was about to shine on them, they played France in the quarter final where after 120 minutes of play the score still stands at 1-1 with a missed penalty in normal play by Zico.
Tele Santana was just purely unfortunate altogether, France defeated them 4-5 on penalty shoot out even though their Platini, Tigana, Giresse and Fernandez quartet was outclassed throughout the match.

Back at home Santana would later stick to his word to give up all national commitment and resort to club football and work to nurture much younger player. He would later came through on his words and before his death his young Sao Paulo side with Cerezo as skipper twice crowned Libertadores champion and also twice triumphant as Intercontinental Club Champion beating the likes of mighty AC Milan and Olympique Marseille in their prime in 1992 and 1993 at Yoyogi stadium in Tokyo.
Based on his 1982 and 1986 losses Santana trained highly skilled, mentally tough and hard fighting winners like Cafu, Leonardo, Pahlinha and Juninho Paulista to win the world cup in 1994 and later in 2002.

14. 1990 – Italy
The peak of the ultra defensive mode was highlighted by Germany beating Argentina 1-0 in one of the most boring affair of the world cup championship ever. Germany led by their libero Lothar Matthaeus denied Argentina the chance to win for the third time. It should have been a glorious battle between countries with 2 wins each and competing for their third. Instead Germany’s Andreas Brehme’s penalty in the dying minutes of the final is the only important note in the final best forgotten. It was a final without many highlights as the crowd groaned watching both teams played a very cautious waiting game.

Meanwhile without Santana, Brazil appointed Sebastiao Lazaroni as national coach and they qualify for Italia 90 by beating Venezuela 4-0 and Chile 2-0.
Lazaroni’s men played first round in Italia by getting pass Sweden 2-1, and barely made it through with double 1-0 wins over Costa Rica and Scotland.

All was lost when they played Maradona and his rag tag Argentineans in Turin. Maradona passed the ball to Caniggia who lob the ball pass over the head of Taffarell even though Rocha and Gomez was marking him so closely on one of Argentina’s rare counter attack. Fans old and young, men and women were reduced to tears as Brazil was knocked out of the world cup in disgrace. People looked for scapegoat and Lazaroni was terrorized back home for his truly lack of imagination and coaching skills. Beyond doubt this was the lowest modern time attainment of Brazil world cup campaign for a long time and unforgivably they exit ahead of time in the 2nd round to their bitter Latin American rival Argentina of all side.

Up until today, the Argentineans still taunt them about it and the Brazilian even speculate whether the report was true when they said the Argentineans poisoned the Brazilian team supplies at the half time interval.

Super Strikes: 1994 – present
The world football governing body FIFA observed a lot of complaints from supporters and sponsors about the negativity of then style of football. Again and again, the issue of back passing, time wasting, cheating and hard fouling to avoid goals such as dangerous play and tackle from behind was highlighted in every meeting.

Then FIFA president the Brazilian Joao Havelange led world football to improve attractiveness of the game and quality of play by several regulation changes. These includes goal keeper not to touch the ball being passed to him by his outfielder. Keepers are timed to maximum of 10 seconds in his handling of the ball. Time wasting was punishable by yellow cards as well as diving and faking an injury. Hard fouling and tackles from behind are dealt with yellow card if not outright expulsion. With these adjustment all sides are encouraged to play more football and increase the beauty of the game to fans and therefore increase more TV exposure and of course sponsorship and endorsement. All matches are played more positively and the old 0-0 or 1-1 boring draws are bodily thrown out of the picture.

These changes brought back the charm and the beauty of the game back into everybody’s life and all sponsorship and TV corporations flocked back to the world cup scene after they were scared over the boring and lame ultra defensive period uttermost the uneventful Italia 1990 final.
The period was turning into a time when football was played in a flowing game, strikers are more prominent and duels of midfielder become skillful instead of brutal, defender relied more on ability instead of viciousness and overall team performance become an issue instead of individual skills and physique. Most cheating and time wasting become nonentity and a thing of the past. All in all it generates a playmakers duel and counter strikes full of skill, strategy and physical grace. Inevitably transfer fee and player wages skyrockets as direct result of the flood of television and sponsorship money.

Joao Havelange retired and the helm was taken over by his long time loyal assistant Joseph Blatter (Swiss) who is shamelessly more business oriented and in no way conventional.
At the same time, the start of the period was the time when Tele Santana’s boys came of age and after their 1992 and 1993 intercontinental club victories in Tokyo, his Sao Paulo’s side inspires the rest of Brazilian to do their best in 1994 world cup and beyond.

15. 1994 – the United States
The change in regulations and the escalation of overall interest back in world football brought the Unites States into the picture. A lot of world cup endorsement money and coverage support for many years have came silently from numerous large American corporations and they decided that 1994 was the time for them to be the host to the world biggest sporting event, for world cup is really superior than summer Olympics or their NFL/MLB/NBA put together. In the process they easily out campaigned everybody on their candidacy and spent tons of money to ensure claim to the biggest and most expensive world cup ever budgeted.

Although it was the first time that a host nation do not even remotely look upon football as their most important sport but they saw a big lucrative deal and a lot of money was also spent to promote the game back to the American people who knew next to nothing about football but was deeply interested by the rest of the world attention on them and of course the big money the bring.

In the end the United States produced the largest world cup ever and the most financially rewarding world cup even to the present day. To put it simply, every body wins something and the Americans made lots and lots of money from it, which is what they do best in the world.

Brazil got their world cup wins after a 24-year drought. Under head coach Carlos Alberto Parreira and closely advised by Mario Zagallo, Brazil qualified by playing 0-0 and 2-0 with Ecuador, playing 0-2 and 6-0 against Bolivia, defeating Venezuela 5-1 and 4-0 and getting by Uruguay with 1-1 and 2-0.

Brazil was led by the captain Dunga, got Taffarell between the posts, closely guarded by the brilliant Mauro Silva and fronted by sharp double strikers in Romario - Bebeto. Until today most would say that Dunga and Romario led the squad with iron hands and intimidation, but I personally consider that it was required to deal with the usual internal strife and bickering and disunity among team members traditionally apparent from previous world cup squads.

In the first round Brazil defeated Russia 2-0 and overcame Cameroon 3-0 and wisely drawn Sweden 1-1 after clearly getting by to the 2nd round.
In the second round Brazil overpowered host nation USA 1-0 and beat the Netherlands in quarterfinal in a memorable 3-2 game in Dallas many considered the real final of the 1994-world cup. In the semifinal they beat Sweden 1-0 to safely secure a berth in the grand final against the Italians comprised mostly of Milan and Juventus players. The game turned out to be a boring affair for the Italian played it safely and naturally resorted for the off chance sudden counter attack. Accordingly the Brazilian played them prudently and wisely held back from a total offensive for they really need to win the cup to quench their 24-years thirst.

It ended not so much with a goal in normal time but it was the only time that a world cup final was decided on penalty shoot out in Pasadena Rose bowl. After 120 minutes the penalty took place and culminated when the Italian golden boy Roberto Baggio skied his shot into the California sky and Brazil lifted the cup for her fourth (Tetra) championship.

Maradona, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Platini and others criticized Brazil for tedious play but I say a win is a win is a win. Damn them for criticizing a history in the making moreover them for not being able to do anything about it. It was Brazil’s 4th crown and by far out-played them all.

16. 1998 – France
The competition was held in France for the second time after the first one before WWII in 1938. It was the French turn to host the championship and Platini said if the French do not have better financial support than the US94 then they promised to bring more educated approach in organizing the world cup. Yuck!

Brazil qualified automatically as the defending champion and was trained once again by the aging genius of Mario Zagallo who suports Jogo Bonito to the end.
In the first round Brazil beat Scotland 2-1 followed by 3-0 over Morocco but lost to Norway in the last group match in Marseille by 1-2. It was a sign of bad things to come.
In the 2nd round they beat Chile by 4-1 and Denmark in a closely contested quarterfinal by 3-2. For semifinal Brazil faced the Netherlands and just managed to squeeze by wining on penalties 5-3 due to the 1-1 score line after 120 minutes of play. Brazil got herself in the grand final to face the host nation France in Paris.

Zinedine Zidane took center stage and took the championship for his adopted country’s first crown. France thoroughly beat Brazil 0-3 in Paris in a best-forgotten final with Brazilian star striker Ronaldo having seizure just hours before the game and was fielded due to demands from Nike’s endorsement representatives.

My take on the whole thing was Brazil under Zagallo first and foremost cannot keep a clean sheet and played a too liberal game without proper cover in between their two central defenders especially against high ball crossed from her flanks against a team who relied on headers and physical prowess. Aldair and Junior Baiano were lost causes and all three French goals were results of corners and crosses. Later on Cafu even took heavy criticism for failing to deal with wingers and Roberto Carlos for failing to seriously mark his charge. Zagallo took all criticism to heart and became seriously ill for quite sometime. Needless to say, in Brazil second place result in football was treated the same as last place if not worse. Cafu said that even fishes let out a groan when they finishes 2nd.

Back in Brazil upon arriving back, Ronaldo just evaded incarceration for failing to explain the incident of his seizure and apparent fielding by Nike’s pressure. He was later on tackled so hard by another damned Portuguese defender named Couto in club football that he was injured for 2 and a half years and out of commission until just 3 months before 2002 world cup in South Korea and Japan. But what a comeback it was…

17. 2002 – South Korea and Japan
Brazil qualified to South Korea – Japan by playing 0-0 and 1-0 against Colombia, 3-2 and 0-1 against Ecuador, 1-0 and 1-1 against Peru, 1-1 and 0-1 against Uruguay, 1-2 and 2-0 against Paraguay, 3-1 and 1-2 against Argentina, 0-3 and 2-0 against Chile, 5-0 and 1-3 against Bolivia and last 6-2 and 3-0 against Venezuela.

It was a dismal qualifier for the South American giant, their worst qualifying record to date. This was the first time that they had lost so many games in the process of qualifying for world cup. But then again this was also the first time that the qualification for CONMEBOL played in full competition where every team has to play each of the nine opponents home and away. Brazil lost 6 games out of 18 and the coach was changed 3 times inside 2 years.

Just 6 games before qualification ends and when Brazil was on the brink of elimination Luiz Felipe Scolari was appointed as coach. He is a moderately defensive coach where he only let limited player to attack and utilized almost everybody on defensive roles. It was reported that Scolari usually chide his players if by the end of any game their fault count was less than 30. The first game that he was in charge Brazil miserably lost 0-1 away in Montevideo. Afterward Brazil also lost to Argentina and Bolivia of the last 5 but fundamentally Scolari made strong changes on the line up.

He ousted belligerent-undisciplined players and injected robust defensive midfielders and put another central defender right in between the 2 defenders in order to help deal with crosses and telling passes from opponent’s playmaker. Most importantly he ousted Romario out of the team even though all Brazil including Brazilian president himself was on his case, instead he appointed Cafu as captain of his team.

Writing about the 2002 world cup, this was the first time the competition was hosted by two countries. The two Far East countries put all their differences away and collaborated to halve the games and burden right down the middle. From my perspective, the biggest drawback from this world cup was the mix-up in their ticketing management. Both South Korea and Japan fail to address this problem and on numerous matches the web site tickets had run out when actually the stadiums was only three-quarter full.

It started with an opening game of France bludgeoned to a 0-1 defeat by Senegal in Seoul to start their dismal campaign of 3 group games resulting in 2 defeats and 1 draw with zero goal scored. It was the all-time worst record for any defending FIFA world cup champion.

Brazil, one the other hand, beat Turkey 2-1 with slight difficulty and injected more defensive capabilities afterwards. Next they annihilate China 4-0 and close first round matches with a 5-2 win over Costa Rica.

In the second round they defeat Belgium 2-0 and then England by 2-1 in the quarterfinal. For the semis they faced Turkey once again and cautiously pass them to the face the German on the penultimate big match. The final was at Yokohama where in the end Brazil hammered Germany 2-0 in an epic final where Ronaldo returning from his terrible injury playing heroic super striker beating Oliver Kahn goal twice. His compatriot forwards were the brilliant Ronaldinho and the magician Rivaldo making the famous 3Rs forward winning Brazilian fifth (Penta) crowns.

18. 2006 - Germany
Italy won their fourth FIFA world cup crown in Germany, beating France on penalties in Berlin. If Zinedine Zidane's red card was the Final's defining image, Italy's triumph would be remembered as a team effort with ten different Azzurri players finding the net. It was also a special month for Germany, the goals of Miroslav Klose helping secure third place in a tournament memorable for the festival mood across the host country.

Brasil lost to France so disappointingly at quarter final 0-1 with a soft goal from Thierry Henry, freed by the lax Roberto Carlos. Zizou was mesmerizing, as Ronaldinho and Kaka failed to live up with their standards.

Poor showing overall, except for Big Brasilian number 9 RONALDO who acquired his 15th FIFA World Cup goal-tally making him the FIFA world cup top scorer of all time ahead of Gerd Mueller and Just Fontaine and even the greatest player who ever live King Pele.