adminRIO DE JANEIRO. — A team boasting of Neymar, Oscar and Dani Alves should win the World Cup soccer title, but Brazil know there are no guarantees even when you host the biggest global sporting spectacle.
Brazil lifted the trophy in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. But a country that clamours for football perfection keeps looking back to a defeat in 1950 when Brazil last organised the World Cup.
Some 200 000 people packed Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium then to see Uruguay beat Brazil 2-1 in a football ambush that has gone down in history as the “Maracanazo”.
The angst of 1950 will be hanging over Sao Paulo’s Corinthians Stadium when Brazil play Croatia in the opening World Cup game on June 12. They also face Cameroon and Mexico in Group A.
Nerves could be jangling if Brazil reach the final, which will be back in the modernised Maracana, where the capacity is now less than 80 000.
Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who guided Brazil to their 2002 triumph, wants that 1950 team to be treated as heros rather than the villains they are now cast as.
“My vision of 1950 is entirely different to what most people think,” Scolari said at a recent Fifa workshop.
“Before 1950 Brazil had never reached the final. They were the pioneers of the five titles we have won since then. Those players got there and made Brazilian history.
“We built our success on top of them. We are going to try and get back to the Maracana for the final and properly remember the team of the 1950s because they were wonderful and fantastic and that’s how I’d like Brazilians to think about them,” said Scolari. — AFP.
Online Reporter