As Brazil brace up to host the 2014 WC, fans’ expectations reach a feverish pitch
Sooner than we know it, and it seems sooner than Brazil needs to prepare for it, the most successful soccer country on Earth will hold the 2014 World Cup.
FIFA and the Brazilian authorities are at odds about the pace of building not just stadiums, but the airports, roads and hotels needed for such a gargantuan event.
Those spats are very familiar. Remember the doubts about Athens being ready on time for the 2004 Olympic Games? Remember what was said about South Africa being fit to stage the 2010 World Cup? They got there, though both are still counting the cost.
Right now, however, Brazil’s burden is greater. It expects not just to play host to the World Cup, but to win it. Its emerging economy might cope with the bills, but its players will not be allowed to forget that soccer is not simply Brazil’s game, it is The Beautiful Game.
They can either blame Pele for that or be inspired by the way he and his generation played it. Pele could never have been the great performer he was without men like Tostao and Gerson to read his intent and create his openings; those two remain respected, and demanding, commentators on the game in Brazil.
They played, 40 years ago, when a team could field more than one “playmaker.” Yet it is the No. 10 jersey that Pele wore that is so synonymous with Brazilian expectations. There are three tournaments that matter going on around the world at this moment: The Copa America in Argentina, the Women’s World Cup in Germany, and the World Under-17 event in Mexico.
So there are three No. 10s – Paulo Henrique Ganso on the senior Brazil men’s side, the incomparable Marta in women’s soccer, and a boy called Adryan Oliveira Tavares in the juniors.
Brazilian media expects great things from each of them, and it puts a heavy boot into any wearer of that jersey who falls below the levels set for them. It is often said that there are 203 million soccer experts in Brazil, all of them either supporters or critics, and all supposedly better judges at picking the national squads – the Selecao – than the incumbents.
When Brazil’s senior men’s team was held to a scoreless draw by Venezuela on Sunday, the experts damned the coach, Mano Menezes, for choosing the lineup he did, damned the field in La Plata for being below par for beautiful play, and damned the players’ lack of cohesion and finishing ability.
Menezes did not, could not, hide his own frustrations. He is charged with returning the Selecao to its proper, creative, Brazilian style. His predecessor, Dunga, had tried to make Brazil hard to beat by acknowledging that most decent Latin Americans these days are hired in their youth by European clubs, and thus conditioned to play a more pragmatic style.
It doesn’t work, and never has with Brazil. Joao Saldanha, the builder of the 1970 Brazil team, once complained bitterly that his successors studied in Europe and “imprisoned” players who should be free spirits into systems that repressed them. Menezes tries to reverse the trend. He selects younger players.
He trusts Neymar, the teenager of Santos, to express his talents. He tells Pato, the striker of AC Milan, that he is good enough to be the new Ronaldo. And Menezes builds the team around Ganso, another player developed at Santos, the club of Pele. Ganso is 21, by which time Pele was winning his second World Cup. But different players, especially Latins and especially the pivotal playmakers, grow into their skills at different ages.
Ganso has come through major knee surgery, and at 1.84 meters, or a little over 6 feet, he is taller than expressive, twisting, turning and inventive midfielders tend to be. He has an exquisite left foot and vision to match, but in La Plata on Sunday, he was the butt of the critics. He shouldered too much blame for Brazil running around like a bunch of individuals. And some who have not seen him shape matches for Santos do not see him as the No. 10 of the new Brazil.
Menezes does. With Kaka resting after severe injuries of his own, the next in line to be the playmaker is a wonderfully gifted Sao Paulo youngster – the 18-year-old Lucas Rodrigues Moura.
They keep on coming. Adryan is doing delightful things for the Under-17 side playing in Mexico at the moment. Then there is Marta. She might be the best, the most complete No. 10 Brazil currently possesses. Five times the world women’s player at the age of 25, her speed of movement and of thought this week were too much for Norway.
The Scandinavians are good athletes, but Norway’s defenders were bamboozled by Marta. Two goals from the No. 10, each struck with eye-of-the-needle precision, and a third created by her, confirmed that one player might not make a team, but can transcend it.
Marta’s message to all comers is that Brazilians think this is their time. Brazil has been decades behind the women’s movement in soccer, which is why Marta, the female Pele, has had to play abroad to win recognition. Her purpose now is to bring home a World Cup, and throw down the gauntlet on the men.
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