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This time, COS reader and Jonathan is tired of people telling him to stop dreaming.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, the past few days have been swamped with European Championship 2008 qualifiers and international friendlies. But in just about every country you travel to you will most likely find a supporter of the Green and Gold – Brazil. For every adult supporter (myself included) you find, you will probably find quite a few little footballers that put their hair in long pony tails and dance after every goal they score, waving their hands about in bizarre quasi-surfer gestures – hoping to one day be like Ronaldinho.
No one can argue the history of the Samba Boys but ever since their World Cup performance, their form has been borderline terrible. After taking on a struggling but newly inspired England squad Saturday, there are a lot of questions to be answered by Dunga and the Selecão. After Beckham’s beautiful crosses and England’s dominating play, the Brasilians managed to squeak a goal by Tottenham keeper Paul Robinson in stoppage time and barely escaped a loss.
Well, next match their play looked even worse against a Turkish team whose only recognizable names are Tugay of the Blackburn Rovers and the Sheffield United player Colin Kazim-Richards. The first half was completely controlled by an attack-minded Turkey team and they looked to be the #2 Ranked team in the world instead of Brasil. In the second half Ronaldinho and Kaka came on to try and spark some life into the team and although the play was a bit better, the turkish team still outplayed the brasilian team for almost the entire 90+ minutes.
After the mediocre play of late by the Brasilians, should we get all excited whenever we see them play on tv or in person? Is it that they just don’t care about the friendlies? Maybe they have egos and think every team they play should just get scared, roll over, and let them do what they want on the pitch? When Brasil plays the U.S. at the end of June, should I go buy green and gold paint and decorate my face with their colors?
Maybe I shouldn’t put on my Brasil jersey while I sit in front of the TV, hoping they create miracles. I think I’m just going to start wearing my Beckham jersey and hope England start fulfilling their potential – you know it’s bad for Brazil when they turn their fans onto anyone managed by Steve McClaren.