WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Brazil Deserves Some Extra Points for Style : Group B: The score was only 2-0, but the dominance of Russia was much more complete.
It was like the giant spectator wave that kept rolling around and around old Stanford Stadium Monday. It was the Brazilian soccer team, and its debut in the World Cup resembled one of those old Western movies, where the cavalry keeps charging and charging and charging.
To Russian goaltender Dmitri Kharine, Brazil must have seemed like a team of hundreds. That Kharine gave up only two goals in Brazil’s 2-0 victory is commendable, considering most of the 15 other shots Brazil took were viable, close-in scoring chances.
He actually gave up only one goal during continual play--that to Romario--and another on a penalty kick to Rai, after one of his defenders actually was called for one of the frequent muggings perpetrated on Brazil’s forwards.
Asked if he thought he’d had a chance to stop Romario’s goal, which came in the 26th minute off a corner kick from Bebeto and was achieved despite Russian defender Vladislav Ternavsky’s grabbing everything but Romario’s car keys, Kharine said, “I guess you could say I had a chance, but it was Romario.”
In other words, this was no mere mortal he was being asked to stop.
There rests the gist of a problem that the favored Brazilians face in this event. Not only are they expected to win, they are expected to do so both convincingly and artistically. It is a pedestal of great height resting on a narrow, slippery base.
The great expectations spring from the fanaticism of followers perhaps unlike any others in the world. They wear yellow shirts, paint their faces green and chant and bang drums for hours before the game and for hours after it. And they travel worldwide, turning most Brazilian games into Brazilian home games.
Monday, they flooded the streets and neighborhoods around Stanford Stadium before the game, waving their flags, singing their songs and teasing the traffic cops. Then they flooded the stadium, where attendance was announced at 81,061 and where the dominant color was yellow.
They love their team and they love their fun. But they are also soccer fans, which means they love to win and they have a ready target in case they don’t. After providing thunderous applause to greet their team, Brazilian fans greeted the introduction of Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira with mostly silence, then a scattering of boos.
The second area of expectation is more subtle, and, if you are Brazil’s soccer team, almost unfairly burdensome. Simply put, world and U.S. soccer officials badly need World Cup ’94 to be a smash hit. A successful U.S. pro league will make the sport truly global, not to mention filthy rich.
But that is unlikely to be achieved with anything less than a shocking result from the U.S. team or a spectacular athletic show by a spectacular athletic team. Since the U.S. prospects of going past the round of 16--or even getting to it--are not great, that leaves the hope for a spectacular team.
Enter Brazil.
All of this showed clearly in the aftermath of Monday’s 2-0 victory. Brazil had dominated, outclassed and totally defeated the Russians. Had it been a baseball game, it would have been 16-1. But it was greeted mostly with shrugs.
Russian Coach Pavel Sadyrin said, “It is always bad to lose, but today, it was more explainable.” In other words, the Brazilians are so good, it is OK to lose to them.
Brazilian midfielder Rai said, “This was expected by the Brazilian people, and now, in our next games, we will be more free flowing.”
Contributing to the sea of yellow in Stanford Stadium Monday were yellow hats, thousands of them, produced and somehow mass distributed by Nike, the master of never missing a marketing trick. They read, “Just Do It, Brasil.”
For the Brazilians in World Cup ‘94, that’s more than merely a slogan. It’s a mandate.
