9/27/2007: Brasil Sambas all over U.S. 4-0
Watching the game between Brazil and the U.S.A today, I had an epiphany of why I love watching the Brazilians play soccer. You get this wondrous easy feeling just like when you listen to Samba or Bossa Nova or any of the other kinds of Brazilian music, with all of the intoxicating rhythms, the incessant drumming, the complexity of the syncopations, the soothing Portuguese voices that emanate and flow from the music and induces you into a total, seemingly eternal state of bliss.
Watching Brazilians play soccer is almost as hypnotizing. They don’t play as much flow on the field, with all of their feints, flicks, stopovers at full speed, double rolls around defenders, and best of all, the dance on the stationary ball daring you to challenge them so they can nutmeg you and make you look like a complete and utter fool. And if that wasn’t enough, they can beat you with pure speed, dribbling a ball faster than you can run, shooting against the run of the dribble, kicking shots that bend and dip over even the finest and most athletic goalkeepers bending. Their game is less like sport and more like music. And they seem to be having so much damn fun doing it. I guess that’s why they call it the ‘jogo bonito’ or beautiful game.
The Brazilian men are by far the best in the world, having won five World Cups. And now, the Brazilian women are in their first World Cup Final, after having thoroughly destroyed the US in a 4-0 thumping in the second Women’s World Cup semifinal. The US had been the dominant team in the early years of the women’s competition and although Brazil had come close to beating them (most notably losing the 2004 Olympic final that many think Brazil should have won), they had never been able to vanquish the old powerhouse. Not until today in the semi-finals. This victory is a result of a long process that has taken years as the Brazilian women have been playing catch-up to the US ever since the inaugural WWC in 1991. Their time finally came today as they handled the US with relative ease, led by many of their skilled players and their true superstar da Silva Marta, or simply as Brazilians are known by a single name, Marta.
The manner in which Brazil won was as astonishing as the final result itself however. Everyone expected a tough game, and I myself predicted the Samba Queens, as they are now known as, to win, but I never expected them to dominate the game so thoroughly. After all, the US was ranked No. #1 in the world. And although one has to question the FIFA ranking in the men’s game, in the women’s game, due to the relative lack of qualified national sides, the ranking is actually more indicative of the true strength of a team. Moreover, the U.S. was a physically and mentally tough team that had been in training for over two year period, with a laser focus on winning this tournament while Brazil had not played in two years time, and only had been brought back in the last month for the Pan Am games. In addition, the US had handled Brazil 2-0 in a preliminary game in the States before the Cup began.
But it began to unravel early for the U.S.. In fact the process may have well began before the game even started. In a moment of sheer and utter panic, the U.S. coach Greg Ryan decided to start Bryanna Scurry, the old wily veteran in place of the current keeper Hope Solo. Solo had played the first four games. She looked shaky shaky in the first match against the game North Koreans allowing a soft goal right off of her hands on a hard shot. But with the score tied at 2-2 and the North Koreans hell-bent on winning the game in injury time, she dived to her right and made a world class save on a low flying shot that was headed for goal. Preserving that 2-2 tie proved to be a huge key for the Americans as they were able to survive the true Group of Death and advance. After that second goal in the first game, Solo had pitched a shutout over a streak of three full games. The decision to substitute Solo based on Scurry’s past “matchup success” with the Brazilians will be second guessed forever. In fact it has made Ryan the fodder of many talk radio hosts who normally could care less about soccer but now pounced on this like piranhas.
This tactical error was the first of Ryan’s faux pass. The second may have been his instructions to be overtly physical with the Brazilians. This was ironic, given that Ryan himself had stated previous to the game how physical the Brazilians had played in their previous encounter. In this game, it was the opposite as the Americans fouled the Brazilians all over the field in the early going. This tactic earned Shannon Box her first yellow card which gave her no room for error later. It also produced a vicious elbow on Marta by Wambach. Unfortunately for the US, Marta would come back from that. As the game progressed it became evident that the U.S tactic of hard fouling was not working.
With the Brazilians firmly in command of midfield, flying at the American goal and creating chances, they secured a corner kick in the 21st minute. Leslie Osborne, deciding to head a ball she simply should have cleared with her feet scored an own goal. This is no way could be blamed on Scurry in normal situations but given the backdrop it was simply fuel for the fire. Six minutes later, Marta produced the first of her two masterpieces. Shrugging off a short pull from Stephanie Lopez on the Brazilian’s right flank, Marta dribbled across just below the 18 yard box, shrugging off all comers. As Markgraf tried to block her path, she pushed the ball one more teeny bit before firing a low hard shot against the near post past a sprawling Scurry and into the back of the net. This beautifully crafted goal would of course continue to add to the debate. Could Hope Solo had gotten to this shot ? I personally don’t think so, but you never really know.
Just when you thought things wouldn’t get any worse, then came the Box ejection on what should have been a non-call. Instead it was a completely nonsensical decision and a grave error on the entire refereeing team. This was a total waste of radio bandwidth since there was no communication from the side judge to tell the referee that this had been nothing more than incidental contact. But as often happens in high profile games, huge mistakes are also made by the referees, technology notwithstanding. The sending off left an already footbalistically depleted team with one woman short on the pitch.
Down at halftime 2-0, Ryan put in Carly Lloyd for Lopez, a substitution that seemed to make sense as Lopez had been torched by Marta on the first goal. But after Brazil scored their 3rd goal, Ryan put in Tina Ellertson to mark Marta 1-1. Aly Wagner meanwhile continue to sit on the bench. This substitution, like the goalkeeping one, simply made no sense either.
There was a 5 minute stretch starting at the 75th minute and culminating in Marta’s goal in the 79th that symbolized the entire game and also helps to reinforce the substitution error mentioned above. Receiving the ball on the left flank Marta danced over the ball with the defender unable to do a thing. Marta coolly passed the ball back and set up a chance for Brazil that ended in a shot that never scored. But this was only a prelude to 2 other moments of brilliance that would put a resounding punctuation mark on what was nothing short of a dominating performance.
Two minutes later, Marta received the ball again on the Brazilian left. With her back to goal, with Ellertson right on her, Marta deftly flicked the ball with her left foot past her defender’s left, spun 180 degrees to the right leaving Ellertson in her and dribbled into the box. As if that wasn’t enough, she then feigned to her left leaving another defender before burying another low hard shot (with her r ight foot this time) to beat the hopeless Scurry for a Brasil’s fourth goal.
This goal was so brilliant, so inspiring that it could very well be the best goal ever scored in the Women World Cup. A moment of brilliance to match Pele’s bycicle kick in 1970 or the Maradonazo of the 1986 World Cup.
At that point, Brasil was already in the Final after having put 3 past the Americans and that 5 minute outburst was the icing on the cake. Brasil had flatly outplayed the U.S. for the first 60 minutes looking not like the #8 ranked team in the world, but like potential championship material. The U.S., were unable to get service into Wagner the entire game. She basically disappeared as they say. The reason for this was essentially a midfield that was unable to match up and had very little if no idea how to play against the Brazilians. With no real playmakers, they resorted to a lot of running and not much else. Another player who was conspicuously absent was Kristine Lilly, whom I have admired for many years for her sheer longevitiy playing an extremely physically demanding sport. She missed a wide open shot in the 63rd that may have made the game a bit more interesting but ultimately probably only would have been a goal to restore the US’s “honor.”
In the final analysis, maybe Brazil were more deserving of the Nike marketing motto "the greatest team you've never heard of.” Germany still has something to say about that, but as of right now, the Samba Queens are dancing to their sweet music all night long.
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