DUNGA DUNGA PARTY

Brazil have appointed a new coach.

Or an old coach.

A new old coach.

At any rate, it’s Dunga.

Cometh the time, cometh the Neymar

The final 23-man squads for this summer’s World Cup have begun to trickle in. There have been few surprises but only a couple of mild head-turners – the presence of Sami Khedira, the absence of Obafemi Martins – but on the whole, the fans will see pretty much who the expected to at the Samba Cup.

In fact, the greatest debate has come from the host nation, as the team Luis Felipe Scolari announced on Thursday does not feature Kaka, Robinho, Lucas Moura, Philippe Coutinho or Lucas Leiva.

The team harkens back to last year’s victorious Confederations Cup team, featuring 16 players from that outfit. Unless midfielders usually accustomed to the park’s center are shifted outside, width will have to come from the full-back, while only three strikers have been listed (the monosyllabically-named trio of Hulk, Fred and Jo). This means this iteration of Brazil will rely heavily on attacking midfielders to score.

For attacking midfielders, just read: Neymar. Despite the presence of players like Paulinho and Oscar, this is Neymar’s team and it should be his tournament. The most precocious talent to come out of Brazil since Ronaldo, the €90 million man should view the next eight weeks as the perfect opportunity to make own this home tournament and join the elitest of the elite – Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

If Brazil are to succeed, he will have to. Always capable of the sublime, yet occasionally prone to flitting around the ephemera of games, Neymar will have to dominate his next seven games in a way he has only occasionally done in his young European career. A harmonious Brazil with Neymar as its focal point has every chance of lifting the trophy; should anyone else become Scolari’s muse, the team would appear slightly faceless. Neymar is Brazil’s biggest star and the Selecao need his force of personality to impel a long run.

The task of pulling the whole of Brazil along behind him must be Neymar’s. He has the understated arrogance of the best, the skills of no-one besides his clubmate Messi and perhaps most crucially of all, both opportunity and licence. It is his time to be the Alpha dog and act like a superstar – to do so would intensify local support ever further and imbue his teammates with faith in their go-to man.

While Kaka and Ronaldinho were for a time great, their careers have both featured a long, almost terminal, downward arc. It has been some time since we were gifted a transcendent Brazilian whose talent perpetuated for at least a decade – the World Cup of 2014 will hopefully present us with the latest in the genealogy that Pele begat.

World Cup 2014 deserves Iceland, not Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic

The argument that the World Cup would be immeasurably damaged by the absence of either Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Cristiano Ronaldo is understandable, but bobbins. While the sublime skills of these players would be missed – but perhaps not as much as their personalities – one wonders if the presence of  the best players in the world is actually what makes the World Cup great.

One of the greatest players in history, Georgie Best, never played at a World Cup Finals, yet the tournament during his career moved to the forefront of football’s imagination. Some more modern greats have appeared at the Big Dance on multiple occasions, only to continually disappoint. (I’m looking at you, Wayne Rooney. And you, Ronaldinho).

Throughout the qualifying process both Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (and the French national team) have trod many stages upon which they might shine. Either or both may still do so – probably to the other’s detriment. But the biggest platform doesn’t necessarily require the biggest stars; the World Cup is more about the sport’s unifying force than the paragon of the sport’s performance.

Seeding the Qualification and playoff draw may help ensure that the best players and most popular teams make it through to the World Cup finals, thereby protecting television rankings in major markets like France. But it does so at the expense of smaller nations who have achieved just as much (and, if relative populations are taken into account, more) to make the final phase of qualification.

If skill begets achievement and achievement deserves its place at the Cup, look no further than the minnows.

Put frankly, the 2014 World Cup would be greater for having Iceland – population 320,000 – enter the Big Dance for the first time in place of Cristiano or Zlatan doing so again. While moments of tremendous skill – often, but not always, perpetrated by the game’s greats – help improve the perceived quality of a tournament, this isn’t the reason why people watch the World Cup.

The Cup’s enduring appeal is a result of the multicultural and festive atmosphere that surrounds it, a product of nation playing nation at an event that occurs only every four years. The greatest and most dramatic moments from the last World Cup – which while perhaps not a great tournament technically, but absolutely engaging – were rarely a solo act of brilliance but the product of team play or the high stakes involved.

Moments of incredible technical prowess don’t make a World Cup. They help, certainly, but the reason the World Cup is the globe’s greatest sporting event isn’t necessarily soft-shoed talent – for that, look to the UEFA Champions League or any match featuring Lionel Messi – but the celebration of national pride and the unlikely stories behind the unfolding events.

Brazil's next Golden Generation

The London Olympics get underway in mere hours.

The football, however, has already begun - with storylines aplenty.  North Korea's women have walked from the pitch in Scotland, heavily-fancied Spain were upset in their first match and finally, the football world is blessed to behold "Team GB".  True to British style, flattered to disappoint in their first match, a draw against Senegal.

And we will witness the rebirth of a football superpower.  

Brazil have stocked their squad with so much young talent that they must be considered firm favourites to collect their first football gold medal: AC Milan's Alexandre Pato, Manchester United target Lucas Moura, Chelsea's newest addition, Oscar, Santos star Ganso and finally perhaps the best Samba player to emerge since Ronaldo, their brightest star, Neymar.  

Most intimidating?  Each player on this list is 22 or younger.  Overage players include  Hulk - perhaps Europe's best player not playing in one of the big five leagues - as well as stalwart centre-back Thiago Silva.

The talent is so superior it doesn't just indicate favouritism for the Olympics, but also for the upcoming World Cup and beyond.  Not even Spain with Iker Munain, Juan Mata, Oriol Romeu and Javi Martinez can rival the Brazilians for pure, unadulterated skill.  

In fact, you arguably have to go back to the World Cup in Germany to find a Brazilian squad with this much natural ability - where Ronaldinho played in his pomp, Ronaldo and Adriano hadn't yet discovered the joys of pastry and Kaka was emerging as a real candidate for world's best player.  The last worldwide exposure we had to a Brazil team was in 2010 where a team of loping, playful souls were miscast as terriers by a terrier-like coach, Dunga.

This only juxtaposes the wellspring of youthful gifts on display.  The Olympic team is easily and obviously such a contrasts to the Brazil squads over the past half-dozen years that they should play with the joy of an uncaged puppy.  By employing senior team coach Mano Menezes as five-rings mentor, the FCB have also provided a direct link from the Olympic squad to the World Cup team.  

The football world should be sit up and take note of what promises to be a very amusing Olympic sideshow.  Because Brazil, so long the Olympic disappointment, won't be so this year.

Neymar to Real Madrid - but why?

It is rumoured that Santos star Neymar will join Spanish giants Real Madrid next offseason, finally consummating a courtship of two years. The Brazilian, recently tipped by Pele as the next "best player in the world", is thought to have agreed a transfer worth somewhere in the region of €53 million. The deal is likely to slap him firmly amongst the elite of footballing salaries.

Such powerful economic impetus for a move notwithstanding, it's worth asking why Neymar has (allegedly) chosen to sign for Real Madrid. The reasons he'd want to play for los blancos are obvious and plentiful: there are no larger clubs; though questions still remain about their level of debt, it's thought Real have the cash to fulfill Santos' expansive financial requests; they have the ability to glorify Neymar both fiscally and with fan-love; and reasonably expect multiple years of contention for the La Liga and Champions' League titles.

Though good reasons, they should all be dwarfed by one contrary reason: that Neymar will find it exponentially more difficult to realise his immense potential at Real than at many - perhaps any - other large clubs. His star burns bright, but will it continue to do so amongst so many others?

Courtesy: tntmagazine.com

Real's collection of attacking talent is probably the greatest in the world: from Cristiano Ronaldo, through Angel di Maria, Karim Benzema, Gonzalo Higuain, Kaka, Mesut Ozil - the list goes on. Neymar likely replaces Benzema or Higuain, but it's hardly a given. Also, competition for the "alpha dog" role will bring out either the best, or the worst in Ronaldo.

To quote a famous Time Lord, where better to hide a tree than a forest?

The Galactico model favoured by current Real Madrid president Florentino Perez acquires global superstars at exorbitant costs to in theory create an unstoppable sporting juggernaut powered by goals and replica jersey sales. It has been moderately successful, but recently inferior to Barcelona's homeslice talent. Certain galacticos have been successes; others ... less so.

Though football's list of richest clubs still includes Real, Barca, Juventus and the EPL's aristocracy - those now most readily reaching for their hip pockets are upstart clubs fuelled by natural resources like Anzhi Makhachkala, Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain. At any of the world's biggest and richest clubs, Neymar would be the feature attraction, allowed to develop and blossom into a player for the ages. Then he could move to "dream club" Real.

Cristiano Ronaldo needed time to develop into "the guy" at Manchester United; Messi only became fully appreciated after Ronaldinho exited the Camp Nou. Everywhere, except perhaps for at the Spanish giants, Neymar would get that time and opportunity.

Where better to shroud a star than amongst others?

Farewell El Fenomeno: Ronaldo retires

Sometimes it's difficult to divorce memories of a player from their off-field exploits. In Australia, the names Wayne Carey, Shane Warne and Gary Ablett Sr loom large: the best of the best in their fields, but with overall legacies tarnished somewhat by their myriad social incompetencies. The football world too is not immune, as names like Paul Gascoigne and Robin Friday are iconic not only for their ability but for their - putting it mildly - foibles.

And as much as we'd like to do so with Ronaldo, he's much the same. "El Fenomeno" has retired, robbing the world of a final valedictorian-style goodbye that such a figure deserves. His last stint in Brazil, hacked short by injury has closed and the thirty-four year old admitted his body had denied him the chance to continue building his legacy. The dual World Cup winner and three-time FIFA Player of the Year has ended his career and now the only questions still to ask concern his place in the spectrum of brilliant Brazilians.

From the time he was spotted by Jairzinho as a teenager and blooded for Cruzeiro as a sixteen year-old, there has been no greater finisher than El Fenomeno. From his early whippet-like form to his recent fatty boombah days, no one could slot a goal like him. That he ended his career with puddin' around the midriff only shows that there was more to Ronaldo than football, and his weight issues that followed horrendous knee injuries will go down as part of the reason he perhaps never fulfilled his nonpareil potential. It was only when he announced his departure from the game that he admitted publicly to suffering from hypothyroidism, a metabolism-slowing disorder for which the medication required would have contravened World Anti-Doping Associating laws.

More to Ronaldo than football is appropriate because never has a man had such a talent for high-profile mishap at times of greater importance. Of course Steven Gerrard can apparently destroy a DJ, or Beckham can tear an achilles tendon at crucial stages of a season, but no-one in modern football underwent what Ronaldo did prior to the World Cup final in 1998. In that episode - at the time attributed to everything from drugs to stress to epilepsy - he underwent the most shocking pre-game routine any player could nightmare about, yet still went out to play (understandably badly). After a steamrolling 42-in-43 spell at PSV Eindhoven, he went to Barcelona and dominated, establishing himself as the best player in the world: strong, fast, clever and lethal. Then came his move to Inter Milan and the twin knee injuries, the second sustained a mere six minutes into his comeback match.

Once sold to Real Madrid, his place in history was assured: not only was he one of the first Galacticos, but his hat-trick against Manchester United at Old Trafford left the most battle-hardened and cynical Red Devil fans with no choice but to offer a standing ovation for his work. In the box, no-one was better. But as his knee, held together with tungsten, steel and blu-tack, deteriorated so did his condition. In former times, after partying he could work the extra kilograms off on the track and while in Spain showed less of a willingness - or, crucially, ability - to do so.

After a transfer to AC Milan and another knee injury, he recuperated in Brazil and was involved, while fighting for his European (and therefore big money) career, in an incident allegedly involving three transvestite prostitutes. Fate seemed to choose the worst times to taunt Ronaldo and though, in future generations he will always be thought of as one of the greats of South American Samba football, it will be impossible to separate Ronaldo the man from his deeds on the pitch. Which is sad, really - because we like sports stars who have more to life than their day jobs; only Ronaldo's off-pitch activities will be forever an addendum, like those of Diego Maradona. Where Maradona's problem was (probably) cocaine, Ronaldo's was just that fate liked laughing at such a natural.

Farewell, Ronaldo. We loved everything about you.

Ronaldo and Robin Friday will both be featured in a new Balanced Sports feature series: Sports Stars you Should Know.