Since this is evidently off-topic I'll condense my comments to a few other posts in this one to make it my ONLY reaction to this subject.
On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 09:09:07 kilopascal wrote: >2002-06-30 > >Brasil has won the World cup 2:0 against Germany. > YES! We've done it!!! And am I so glad we did it!... It was the victory of flare, art, technical prowess and sheer talent over mechanical, defense-oriented, tough-playing philosophy of the German school of soccer! In the end though, ALL of us, football fans, have won! It just had to be this way for the good of the sport!... ;-) >I would hope that by the next World Cup that the Europeans would play as a Unified >team. Maybe a pipe dream on my part, but in my opinion a better situation >... I honestly don't think this has a chance in a sextillion to happen. Football just touches a nerve and fiber of nearly every citizen of this planet. Football is just culture and passion at their best!!! (Note: However, who knows? Perhaps this could be their unique way to stop Brazil from continuing its reign and domination of the sport, he, he, he... :-) ) As for the other comment here about 'if only the British played harder' against Brazil... Hmm... Unfortunately it seems our friend didn't... "get it". That it would take a lot more than just "playing harder" to win against Brazil! ;-) But, hey! You shouldn't be so sad, my friends, "afinal" (since) you've only lost to the World Champions! :-) As for me I'll probably continue to root for us to continue meeting each other in other Cup venues since so far every time we faced England we ended up winning the Cup in the end... (OBS.: This is one of the most traditional "tabus" in World Cups' history *still in effect*, BTW, for those uninformed about Cups' roster of "curiosities"...) Seriously now, if there is one lesson to learn of this Cup is that humility, hard work, perseverence, dedication and passion are absolutely critical to being successful. No Cup is and ever will be won "before competition" starts. Teams should learn to respect their opponents, take EACH AND EVERY adversary they face seriously and do their best while being truthful to their *roots*. As for me, an ardent, passionate Brazilian fan, I can only say that I'm very happy that we seemed to have finally learned a few lessons the most important of which being how to be *competitive* in this type of competition. In the past we always thought our sheer unmatchable talent with the ball would suffice, but our bitter disappointments in 82 and 86 (when we unquestionably had the best teams) have finally made us realize that we had to learn how to *compete* to win. 1970 was the last one actually when sheer genius was able to carry the day and win against any and every opponent. Now that's unfortunately not enough. This is a real pity though because IMHO football lost a lot due to this style of championships (straight one-game playoffs). But I'll volunteer a plan of action (a new competition formula) to FIFA to try to change this. I strongly believe we should return to the previous formula of working through groups till the very end (semi-finals or even finals) allowing for at least one team to advance based on its campaign in the tournament till that moment. (Unfortunately I don't have much hope though that my suggestion will be accepted... sigh...) Cheers! E VIVA O BRASIL PENTACAMPECO DO MUNDO!!!!!!!!! E VAMOS RUMO AO HEXA EM 2006, BRASIL!!!... Marcus Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com
