Yeah, yeah. I can hear the spluttering and bleating of lazy, cliche-spewing football writers from here to Belo Horizonte. What about the Samba Kings, the beautiful game played at its finest, the artisans of football? Yeah, what about them? The fuckers haven't been seen in a World Cup since 1970, so what the fuck does that have to do with Brazil? The Samba Kings died with Pele. Dunga wouldn't have had him in his side. He wouldn't have been much chop in a 6-4-0.
My beef with Brazil is about pretence over contents. The acres of wank-stained fluff printed about them as the guardians of football as it should be played, not to mention endless masterbatorial Nike-swooshed advertorial content (which, it could be argued, cost them the 1998 final re the stress-related munting of Fat Ronaldo) is directly and inversely proportional to the quality of football they've played in the last 40 years.In the tournaments they've won, they've been just as dull, pragmatic and soulless as Italy or Germany, but at least they aren't lying to people about it. Brazil in 1994 were hideous to watch, they made a Bobby Baggio-led Italy look like 11 Cristiano Ronaldos. Brazil in 2002 were nothing more than the last men standing, only having to see off a munted, Ballack-less Krauty enterprise to take the cheese. In South Africa, the only teams to bust out anything remotely reminiscent of 'samba football' have been the Argies in the group stages, and maybe the Uruguayans, who only seem to turn up and play at world cups every 20 years (1990 was the last time they went alright, 1970 they made the semis, won 1950, won 1930.) Certainly not a dour, defensive Dunga-led Brazil. Even reclusive, media shy former great Pele broke his decades of media silence to comment on the traitorously negative tactics employed by the soon-to-be-former Brazil coach and dullard-in-chief of the 1994 lineup.
The other fucking annoying thing about Brazil is that they're invariably the team of bandwagon-jumping fuckwits who know arse all about football, apart from what they've read about the Samba Kings Of Football etc etc etc. Forty years ago, that was the case. Maybe even 30 years ago, with the showy-but-eventually-shite '82 side of Socrates, Garrincha and various other improbably named cavaliers.
But these days the definining memory of Brazilian football, for me at least, is Rivaldo in '98, responding to an innocuous ball kicked at his ankles by grabbing his face and throwing himself to the ground. Diving, cheating, showboating, overfluffed arsehats.Get the fuck out of my tournament.
Right that's my flimsy justification for laughing like a bastard at the Dutch stuffing the Selecao. We all have teams, sides, individuals who we'd rather see faceplant off a bungy tower than see the finish line first. The World of Bollocks asks today: who do you hate, and more to the point, why do you hate 'em? Interested in the justification here. "Just because they're fuckin' Manly," while accurate, isn't really what we're looking for.
The Doctor is OUT. Like Brazil. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
