June 14, 2006
The Brazilian Way: Work First, Then Samba
They will try to tell you this was an ordinary start to a World Cup for Brazil, a narrow victory on a night of humid conditions and Croat determination not to lie down and surrender.
Do not listen.
The goal that Kaká scored was a masterpiece by an embryonic young player aspiring to graduate among the exalted group that surrounds him.
His goal was matched, no it was transcended, by the meaning of the place we were in.
This was Adolf Hitler's stadium, the home of the 1936 Olympic Games at which the black American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals to discredit the theory of white Aryan supremacy under the Führer's gaze.
And despite more than $300 million spent on renovating the old stadium, it still exists. Its oval shape is unaltered, a fresh blue running track replaces the old cinders, a roof encircles the stands. But the stone monuments remain, and those austere steep concrete steps leading up to the cauldron where the flame was lighted before most of us were born are preserved.
The place is at once chilling, and an education.
As we settled inside it, waiting for Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Adriano, Cafu, Roberto Carlos to entertain us, a golden sun was setting just behind the one open sector of the Olympiastadion, and directly behind those steps.
Credit the Berliners for keeping this history alive, and for not trying to hide or bury the past.
And join me in assessing Brazil in Berlin.
This is no ordinary team, no ordinary soccer nation. Mario Zagallo, a 74-year- old Brazilian who has either played in or helped to groom all five Brazil triumphs at World Cups had told the "boys" not to expect samba on the first night.
He had felt the mood was too euphoric. He feared that the 560 Brazilian journalists who crawl over this squad like ants were building the team up to knock it down. The class is there, but Zagallo's message is that no team ever conquers the world without hard effort.
Zagallo preaches, even more than does the coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, that the best four-letter word is "work."
I have been guilty in the past of arguing against his work ethic, almost as if it spoiled the image of the "beautiful game." With age, it dawns that without work, there will be no beauty. One is the platform for the other.
And how those Croats made Brazil sweat. Zlatko Kranjcar, Croatia's coach, devised tactics intent on denying Brazil. His men, in red-and-white checked shirts, clung closer than brothers to the Brazilians, tackled fiercely, blocked the beauty for as long as they could.
As we watched, and in a way appreciated, the skilled way that Kranjcar's sons (one of them, Nico Krancjar, an actual son), the criticisms of everyone from Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, down came into focus.
Ronaldo, are you too fat? Certainly he looked like a player who has not performed much since Christmas, and only rarely did he hint at the majestic striker who is equal in goals at World Cups, with 12, to Pelé. One more, his 13th, and Ronaldo eclipses the greatest Brazilian; three more and he goes beyond the all- time record of Gerd Müller.
We must wait, and I will tell you one man who believes we shall not wait in vain. Mario Kempes, an Argentine idol in 1978, observes: "Ronaldo hasn't played an official game before Wednesday for two months. I think its because he's saving himself for the World Cup.
"People say he's overweight, but, fat or thin, give him the ball and in four yards he will gain a yard on you."
For four yards, or closer to 40, the Brazilians can find someone who will take the breath away. When the ball came to Kaká, who at 24 has his great games ahead of him, his match winner was sublime. He had two men marking him, and he lost them without moving his feet.
A body swerve, a moment of deceit and composure combined, and then two touches of the ball before, out of nothing, his left foot struck it. The motion looked so calm, empowering the ball with such grace that it rose and arched and defeated the despairing right hand of a fine goalie, Stipe Pletikosa, into the net.
With that goal, and with the discipline that Brazil was prepared to defend it, the first victory was in the bag. It was water on a parched tongue, a prelude to Brazil's attempt at its sixth World Cup victory.
Salute, for now, a single example of its art. There will be more because this, I believe, is the best Brazilian collection of talents since the 1970 side, the best in my lifetime.