WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FINAL : SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : A Day for Heroes Past, Present and Future
They loped off the field together, the old wolf and the young cub.
The old wolf’s mane was white. In his eyes, a tear or two might have glistened. Perhaps it was the memories that came flooding back, memories of 1958, 1962, 1970 and, now, 1994.
Or perhaps it was that his players, his beloved Brazilians, had just been tossing him into the air, not once, not twice or thrice, but four times, one for each World Cup he has won.
And that sort of celebration takes some getting used to when you’re going to turn 63 in three weeks.
Thirty-six years after he starred as a left wing on Brazil’s 1958 World Cup-winning team in Sweden, Mario Jorge (Lobo) Zagalo won the Cup for an astonishing fourth time Sunday, this time as Brazil’s technical director.
No one has done that before.
Alongside padded the cub, christened Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima but already far better known simply as Ronaldo.
Ronaldo is 17 and his proudest possession as of this morning is a World Cup winner’s medal. Pele was 17 when he won his first World Cup. Ronaldo did not play in this tournament, but just as Zagalo represents Brazil’s past, Ronaldo represents its future.
Zagalo already had won two World Cup tournaments as a player and a third as Brazil’s coach by the time Ronaldo was born in 1977, but the youngster is being touted as the nation’s next star. More than 50 goals for Cruzeiro, his Brazilian club, have earned him that accolade.
The weight of being the next Romario or Bebeto was not on Ronaldo’s shoulders in this World Cup. That will come later. For now, he was content simply to learn, to be part of the team, accepted well enough so that during Brazil’s celebratory dances Ronaldo went about smacking his fellow players with a large yellow balloon.
The innocence is still there for Ronaldo. Innocence that was sadly lacking during a World Cup final that, while incident-filled, never rose to any great height as a spectacle.
The announced Rose Bowl crowd of 94,194 (a highly suspicious total in a 1994 World Cup filled with too many heavy-handed public-relations gimmicks) sat through two hours of defensive soccer.
It was not boring--there were too many fascinating one-on-one battles for that--but neither was it exhilarating. This was a game for those who enjoy their soccer as played by Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Aldair and Marcio Santos.
All four were excellent, with Maldini enjoying the game of his life, especially once he had been restored to his usual left-back position. Baresi, who is not quite as old as Zagalo but probably felt like it by the end of 120 exhausting minutes, was equally superb.
Between them, and with significant help from the relatively inexperienced but astonishingly composed Antonio Benarrivo and Luigi Apolloni, they completely nullified the twin threats of Romario and Bebeto.
At the other end of the field, Aldair and Marcio Santos, dealt equally capably with the disappointingly rare Italian offensive forays. Roberto Baggio, Italy’s great hope, was hobbled by a hamstring strain and was never able to escape the attentions of Mauro Silva.
It added up to a frustrating afternoon for both teams’ attacks, and it was hardly surprising that it finally required penalty kicks to tell world champion from runner-up.
Parreira did what he had promised. Despite intense and ugly criticism of his team’s style, he brought the Cup back to Brazil. More than that, the fans cannot ask.
“Parreira is a good coach, but he doesn’t have any luck,” a Brazilian journalist said before the tournament. “Zagalo is not a good coach but he has good luck.”
Together, they made the perfect combination.
Brazil is now holder of three world championships, having won the Under-20 World Championship in Australia last year as well as the FIFA Five-a-Side (Indoor) World Championship in Hong Kong, also last year.
The Brazilian team that defeated Ghana in the Under-20 final in Sydney is light years removed from Parreira’s side. It played the way Zagalo used to, full of flair and imagination, with surprises around every corner.
It is the team Ronaldo now can join for the next Under-20 World Cup, in Nigeria next year.
And if the young cub is wise, he’ll find a way to take the old wolf with him.
Just for luck.
