footballspectator

Brazilian teams Santacruzense and Atletico Soracaba were playing in the Coppa FPF. Away team Soracaba was leading 1-0 win the 89th minute, when sneaky ball boy José Carlos Vieira, decided to take matters into his own hands. Amazingly, linesman Marco Antonio de Andrade Motta Jr, signalled that the goal had been scored by Santacruzense’s number 9, Carvalho Almeida and female referee Silvia Regina de Oliveira (who has a FIFA badge no less), gave the goal.

Unsurprisingly, all hell broke loose as the referee and the linesman were both attacked by irrate home players and fans. Oliveira was suspended immediately by the federation, while the linesman will face disciplinary action once he is released from hospital.

Meanwhile Santacruzense have been fined R$50,000 and suspended form the competition as a result of “unsportsmanlike conduct” of their  ballboy. As for the cheeky culprit? “I saw they were not looking and kicked the ball softly into the goal“, he said cheerfully. Rumours are that a number of teams were impressed by his “skills” and that offers will soon come flooding in for his services…..

A lot has been made in the English press about Dunga’s selections in his first few matches containing load of “unknowns” and “nobodies“. There was then general surprise when those “nobodies” dismantled Argentina in Sunday’s “friendly“. Those same “nobodies” (plus the world famous Ronaldinho and Kaká) beat Wales tonight 2-0 (goals from 18-year-old fullback Marcelo and Vagner Love). So who are these “nobodies” who have started to remind us of what Brazil can really do?

Elano, Daniel Carvalho, Vagner Love and Dudu are all names with which Brazilians have long been familiar but which the English press assumed were not much good because they played in countries such as the Ukraine and Russia. The argument seemed to be that if they were any good, surely they would have been playing in Europe’s bigger leagues - England, Spain, Italy or Germany.

Shortly after Porto’s Champion’s League victory, Dynamo Moscow bought half the team - Costinha, Maniche, Derlei, and later Seitaridis, all widely acknowledged to be great players. So why should Elano, Vagner Love or Daniel Carvalho be any worse? Vagner and Carvalho were key players in CSKA’s UEFA Cup triumph in 2005. None of the three were debutants on Sunday. Vagner starred with Palmeiras before moving to CSKA for £6 million. Carvalho was a star at Internacional while Elano was part of Santos’ successful young squad before moving to ambitious Ukrainian outfir Shakhtar Donetsk. The international careers of all three pre-dated their moves east but were then cut short as previous coach Carlos Alberto Parreira tended to focus on the leagues he knew.

Dunga should be applauded for his willingness to look beyond the norm. He knows that Brazilian clubs and players are desperate for money and Russian football is currently flooded with cash. Unlike previous coaches he is not punishing talented players who have moved to less glamorous leagues for purely economic reasons.

Is Carlitos Tevez on his way out of Corinthians? Following Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Botafogo in the Brasileirao, Tevez failed to turn up to training on Monday without providing Corinthians’ management with any indication of his whereabouts. In the wake of Sunday’s match, Tevez hinted that that may have been his farewell match for Timao.

Undoubtedly Corinthians’ best player of the past two seasons, Tevez has enjoyed an unhappy spell this term and has been targeted by the Sao Paulo clubs notoriously fickle fans for the team’s poor form so far which finds them in the relegation zone. After being booed throughout a recent match, he irked fans yet further by putting his finger to his lips in a “silence” gesture after scoring. This prompted some fans to threaten to beat him up unless he apologised. More recently he was involved in a training ground bust-up with team-mate Carlos Alberto. Despite the troubles, Tevez has still managed to improve on his goals to games ratio from last year with 15 goals in 23 games.
If Tevez leaves where will he go? The latest rumours say Milan who are in need of a forward following the sale of Sheva to Chelsea. But don’t rule out Bayern or Manchester United

A few years ago, Diego was hailed as the next big thing in Brazil. Forget Robinho, the original Santos starlet was playmaker Diego. He first burst onto the scene as a 17 year old and duly lead Emerson Leao’s young Santos side to their first championship in 18 years and all the wasy to the Libertadores final. The classic Brazilian number 10, Diego had it all. He dribbled, he had an excellent passing range and an eye for goal. In 2003, Tottenham’s bid to bring him to the premiership failed. Instead Diego extended his contract with Santos. The following summer after strong performances during Brazil’s Copa America triumph, he finally moved to Europe and to Porto, the then newly crowned European champions as a replacement for Barcelona bound Deco. During his first season, under Victor Fernandez, he managed 30 games for the Portuguese giants, but when Fernandez was fired and eventually replaced by Co Adriaanse, Diego was deemed surplus to requirements. He played only 19 times last season and missed out on Brazil’s World Cup squad.

It was time for a fresh start and this summer Diego moved to Werder Bremen. Now you would not think that Germany and Brazilian footballers would go well together. Spain, yes. Italy yes but Germany? Well many of Brazil’s finest have thrived here and Diego seems no different. There has been a magical transformation of his form. He has been the star in each of Werder’s first two games, scoring and setting up goals.So great has been his impact that Kicker has even compared him to the other Diego. Still only 21, the €6 million that Werder paid for him is looking like the bargain of the summer. Dunga are you watching?

Carlos Dunga, the captain of Brazil’s 1994 World Cup winning side has been announced as the new coach of the Selecao following theresignation of Parreira. Dunga’s contract is to cover the World Cups of 2010 in South Africa and 2014 which may be held in Brazil.

Dunga  declared that he wants to bring the same characteristics that he showed as a player to the  national team, “motivation and a will to win are the keys to wearing the national shirt“. Judging from their abject performances in Germany, these are two qualities which are currently very much lacking.

As a player Dunga played at the World Cup finals of 1990, 1994 and 1998.  He won 96 caps in all winning 66, drawing 21 and losing 9, scoring 6 goals in the process. Apart from the World Cup he also won 2 Copa Americas (1989 and 1997) and 1 Confederations Cup (1997). Canarinha fans everywhere will be hoping that he can recreate this success as a coach.

Manchester United are apparently interested in 6 Juventus players: Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta, Patrick Vieira, Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson and Lilian Thuram. Alex Ferguson said, “We were waiting to see what the situation with Juventus was. Now we know in which direction to go in terms of inquiries and, possibly, definitive offers for one or two players“.

However, according to AS, Ferguson may be too late for at least three of these. Real Madrid’s Sporting Director Predrag Mijatovic is in Turin to finalise the signings of Cannavaro, Emerson and Zambrotta. He will meet with Juve officials tomorrow to negotiate the final price - Juve are asking for €40 million and Real’s current offer is €30 million for all three. Mijatovic may also pick up Cristiano Zanetti, a favourite of Capello. These players may be joined at Real by Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Kaka.
To add a further twist Zambrotta’s agent says that his client would rather stay in Italy with AC Milan his destination. He may be joined there by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who Carlo Ancelotti believes is the ideal partner for Alberto Gilardino.

Inter have had a €38 million bid for Fernando Torres rejected by Real Madrid. Torres is also wanted by Manchester United to replace the outgoing Van Nistelrooy. But new coach Javier Aguirre has insisted that Torres is not for sale. Marseille chairman Pape Diouf has issued similar statement regarding World Cup star Franck Ribery.

Javier Saviola’s agent has said that his client will either stay at Sevilla or move to Panathinaikos after Arsene Wenger declared yesterday that he was not interested in signing the player. Saviola spent last year on loan in Seville from Barcelona who are keen to offload the Argentine. Other players on the way are Jared Borgetti from Bolton to possibly Racing Santander and Liverpool duo Jan Kromkamp (a PSV target) and Djimi Traore who may go to Bolton or Charlton.

Finally tow players who completed moves today were Holland’s Denny Landzaat who joins Wigan from AZ Alkmaar and Croatian World Cup playmaker Niko Kranjcar who is moving to Celta Vigo from Hajduk Split.

In an interview with Greek sports newspaper Protathlitis, Brazilian legend Rivaldo, who has spent the last two years in Greece with Olympiakos, said that this year will most likely be his last in the game because he was, “tired of playing so many matches and of so much pre-season training“.

In truth Rivaldo’s career has been in decline since his glory days at Barcelona in the late 90s when he helped the Catalan giants to successive championships and also won World and European player of the year. He was part of the fearsome 3R attacking trident at the 2002 World Cup along with Ronaldo and Ronadinho. He then moved to Milan but never managed to reproduce his Barca form. After a brief stint in Brazil he returned to Europe and the promise of the Champions League with Olympiakos. However like compatriot Giovanni, Rivaldo seemed to find the Greek football dull. He performed when he had to - in Europe and in the derby matches against AEK and Panathinaikos. This would buy him enough time with the fans who would then ignore his mediocre games against teams like OFI, Kallithea or Egaleo when it was obvious he could not be bothered. However, even in his better games with thrilos he was a shadow of the player we all knew. Let’s face it, if he wasn’t, he would not be playing in Greece. So well done Rivaldo for finally bowing out while we can still remember your undoubted qualities! For those of you that can’t,  here’s a taste of Ribo at his peak: his hat-trick goal in the 88th minute at the end of the 2000-2001 season which guaranteed Barcelona Champions League football:

Following, Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s announcement that he wants to leave Manchester United, speculation is mounting as to his next destination with Bayern Munich and Real Madrid leading the race for his signature. According to El Mundo, Real may offer partyman and part-time footballer Ronaldo in part-exchange for the prolific Dutch striker, as the Brazilian does not form part of Fabio Capello’s plans…

Rumour Rating: Unlikely! Ronnie is fat and injured. His knee operation will keep him out for at least a month, giving him plenty of time to work on his waistline by downing a few more burgers. The Premiership is fast and furious while Ronaldo is slow and immobile. The two don’t match! On top of this, we can’t really see Alex Ferguson, who sold David Beckham because he felt that his love of the celebrity lifestyle was getting in the way of his football, welcoming O Fenomeno, Brazil’s answer to Becks. Finally if it’s partying you’re after, you’d have to be crazy to swap Madrid for Manchester…

Anyone who watched Brazil play cannot be anything but disappointed by the Seleçao’s performances. Newspaper Folha of Sao Paulo has now revealed the reasons behind the teams poor showing. The paper claims that the camp was divided, with half of the squad in favour of heavy drinking and other forms of “excess“, with the remainder shunning such behaviour especially during a World Cup. Surprise, surpise, two of the main culprits were Ronaldo and Adriano, who smoked and drank heavily on their days off. Kaka, Lucio, Luisao, Cris and Ze Roberto were (understandably) angered by such behaviour with Ze Roberto saying “I tried my hardest but every player must ask himself whether he did“. One day after Brazil’s exit to France, Adriano and Ronaldo were spotted out clubbing and team-mates have accused Ronaldo of only being interested in breaking the World Cup goals record (which he did).

Cafu is another who does not escape criticism - the accusation against him is that his primary motivation was to break the record for the highest number of appearances in World Cup finals matches and that he did not care about how the team did. This seems a strange charge to hold against him - surely Brazil’s progress in the tournament would also help him improve his record!Whatever the truth, the fact is that World Cups are not won on reputation but on performance and this is why Brazil failed.

Much has been made at this World Cup about the size of Ronaldo’s waistline. He arrived at the World Cup weighing over 95 kg, 13 kg above his normal “fighting weight”. The question is what made him so fat? At footballspectator, we believe we have found the answer. He seems to have Coke’s slogan: “Eat football. Sleep football. Drink Coca-Cola” rather too literally……

Here are the positives from today’s victory for Brazil:

1. Ronaldo scored again broke Gerd Muller’s record for World Cup goals - he beat the offside trap and ran(!) through to score
2. Adriano scored as well (although it should have been disallowed for offside)
3. Kaka and Ze Roberto continue to play well
4. They played badly yet won 3-0.

Now here are some negatives:

1. The performance against Japan was a pleasant parenthesis - “Jogo Feo” seems to be the norm when the game is on the line
2. In the absence of Robinho, the team lacks movement
3. Ronaldinho looks burnt out and is performing nothing like he did for Barcelona
4. Their defending continues to look chaotic and while this has always been the case for Brazil, they usually compensate for this in attack but not this time.

The problem is that while it is possible to add to the list of negatives, it’s hard to add to the list of positives. It’s just not the Brazil, we know, expect and love to watch!

Of course, how Brazil play is not only up to Brazil and like Australia and Croatia before them Ghana caused Brazil a number of problems. They created numerous chances, but their achilles heal was their finishing once again with Gyan and Amoah guilty of missing numerous opportunities. It was this combined with their naive defensing which ultimately cost them claiming a famous scalp. Ronaldo, Adriano and Ze Roberto all scored by beating the offside trap. So as Africa’s last representative goes out, the enigma continues: are Brazil just playing badly or are they overrated?

What a match between Brazil and Japan last night! It felt like watching someone play Pro Evolution Soccer or FIFA on the playstation: it was a celebration to football, with both teams playing attacking football non-stop for 90 minutes and plenty of chances on either side (well, mostly for B

Although they did take the lead with a great strike by Tamada, the Japanese never really looked like they would win it. An inspired Ronaldo scored two (he even ran a bit, this time!), equalling Gerd Müller’s record 14 goals in World Cup finals, while Robinho and Juninho Pernambucano got the other two.

So, is it all downhill for Brazil now? Not really: their star player, Ronaldinho, is still far from the form you’d expect from the World’s best footballer and, most importantly, their shaky defence is yet to be properly tested. The moment they’ll face a team that’s strong in attack (maybe not Ghana, but Spain? Or France?) they might get into serious trouble. We’re still not convinced this team has what it takes to go all the way.