The Brazil Road Show
Backed by new money from Nike, the Brazilian World Cup team is more hyped than ever. Thousands of French fans travel each day to get a glimpse of the World Cup champions in practice.
For just under two months in the summer of 1994, they were in the Bay Area. A hotel complex in Los Gatos. A training camp at Santa Clara's Buck Shaw Stadium. Sessions open to the public at $5 a pop. The sun shone and the stands were awash with gold, green and blue.
''From top to bottom, Brazil was the most impressive organization I've ever seen,'' says San Jose Clash GM Peter Bridgwater, who served as executive director for the San Francisco venue at World Cup USA 1994. ''The way they conditioned themselves in training, the meticulous way they prepared for games and the atmosphere at the team's hotel were absolutely first-class.''
On July 4, after the Brazilians defeated the United States at Stanford, 18,000 fans jammed the streets of well-to-do Los Gatos in a postgame party, ''a wonderful event,'' according to Bridgwater.
''Someone unfurled a Brazilian flag that was joined to an American flag that said 'We've left our hearts in San Francisco – We love you.' It made a tremendous picture. Their fans were a true delight – there are no finer fans in the world.''
And then there was the Brazilian media. Three hundred of them arrived to cover the team's every move. After the team's plane touched down in San Jose, there was a formal press conference that quickly degenerated as cell phones were passed from player to player on the dais.
Things got worse before they improved: Brawls broke out between journalists and security staff at a warmup in Fresno, Calif., as radio reporters, disguised as photographers, raced onto the field at halftime. There was another brawl when Brazil begged off a postgame conference, and 30 journalists stormed the hospital where Ricardo Gomes was being treated for a broken leg.
After the tourney started, however, it quickly became apparent that nothing much was happening. Journalists would perform play-by-plays on scrimmages, and interview each other like old friends before the knot of wires and cameras would trail the players for a quick ''hello'' to the folks back home after training.
There were no real feuds – Romario was on his best behavior and anyway he wasn't talking.
But the media found an easy scapegoat in coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, whom they lambasted for unadventurous tactics and an inability to find a playmaker.
Parreira was a game foil, soaking up the heat until the final where he met the similarly beleaguered Arrigo Sacchi of Italy in the scorching heat of Pasadena. The result was a constipated, cautious affair, which the Brazilians won on penalties.
''Like the Frank Sinatra number, 'I did it my way,''' said a defiant Parreira afterward. But if you ignored the outcome – and critics usually do – his way was not the most exciting. Brazil '94 played good soccer that had one foot firmly fixed in the real world. The Brazilians didn't dazzle as they had done in their lionized but ultimately fruitless campaigns of '82 and '86, but they weren't the loathed ''Europeanized'' plodders of 1990, either.
Ronaldo is one-man industry
On May 21, 1998, the Brazilian World Cup circus began all over again as a Varig jet, its exterior painted in Brazilian team colors, sped off the runway and headed for Charles De Gaulle Airport, not too far from St. Denis and the Stade de France, where the Selecao's entourage will open its defense of the World Cup June 10 and will be hoping to retain the title July 12.
Much has changed from four years ago. Ronaldo was a gawky 17-year-old in braces, picked for the squad at the request of President Itamar Franco, who was hoping to woo the youth vote in fall elections (he lost).
Now of course, he's a one-man industry, surrounded by agents, bodyguards and a posse of advisers.
''Four years ago, Ronaldo didn't have the bus fare from his home in Ribeiro,'' veteran journalist Touginho told France Football. ''Now, if he whistles for it, he can have a helicopter.''
But life for Ronaldo has its pressures, and the youngster in him still shines through at odd moments. There was the confession of bedwetting on a daytime talkshow in Brazil a couple of years ago. Then there was a tearful meltdown last winter at the Confederations' Cup after Italian journalists criticized his play for Inter Milan, after which the entire Brazil squad shaved their heads a la Ronaldinho in a show of solidarity.
Behind Ronaldo – and indeed the entire Brazilian federation (CBF) – is a major new player. Nike will pay out approximately $240 million for the right to have the Brazilians wear a green swoosh on their shirts over the next decade and the sports outfitter is now a major player in the team's affairs.
Building a new floor at the CBF headquarters is one thing. Construction of a Brazilian soccer museum – scheduled to be opened in the year 2000 – is another. And then there was the victory tour, which gave the Brazilians valuable playing time.
''It's not Brazil with Nike, it's Nike with Brazil,'' says Cees Van Nieuwenhuizen, director of Nike Brazil.
The cost of the Brazil's stay in France – hotel, transportation, upkeep, etc. – will be around $7 million. Nike officials paid deposits on five hotels before settling on a chateau in Lesigny and found a training site that they would turn into a mini-Stade de France.
The site is in Ozoir-la-Ferriere to the east of Paris, and contains a field built to the exact dimensions of the Stade de France's. It's fully equipped to stage open- and closed-door training sessions and has been fitted with an indoor fitness center and swimming pool for the team to relax in.
Fans arrive at 5:00 a.m. for tickets
''We expected a daily flow of 6,000 people wanting to see Brazil train,'' said Ozoir mayor Jacques Loyer. ''The actual figure is closer to 10-15,000 visitors a day.''
Lines for purchasing tickets to the morning and afternoon training sessions begin forming at 5 a.m. – three hours before the ticket windows open for business. The mini-stade, decked out in swooshes, has private tribunes – a soccer fact of life – for CBF and Nike high-rollers, while regular supporters fill the other side.
The denizens of Lesigny are unimpressed by all the hubbub.
''We didn't ask for a soccer team to come here, we didn't want a soccer team,'' said a spokesman for the mayor. ''We're not especially enthusiastic about this.''
One resident, upset at the blanket security restrictions, added: ''I suppose we will not be allowed to die during the World Cup.''
However, some things remain the same. Brazil is again the favorite to take the World Cup, despite some recent poor form. The team may not be playing well at the moment, but who is – Norway?
In four years, coach Mario Zagallo has been unable to find a reliable No. 10, and just like his successor, he's fallen foul of the press, which now berates him for poor prep-work, dotty selections and, well, being the coach.
So, should Brazil hoist the World Cup July 12, the players will get the credit. If they fail, the coach will get the blame. Soccer maxims never change, no matter whose logo is daubed across a jersey.
(Duncan Irving is a senior editor of Soccer America.)