Opinion – Sandro Macedo: Cup with final 2; few and striking

The math says that the World Cup always takes place in an even year – unlike the Olympics, Covid did not affect the World Cup calendar. And the first one took place in year zero, 1930. However, there are very few World Cups with a 2 or 6 ending. This is due to the Second World War, which caused the cancellation of the 1942 and 1946 World Cups.

Thus, we only have three Cups with a 2 ending, the 2022 one (full of 2) will be the fourth. The zero ending has a lot, five. Zero ending is penta.

But let’s go back to the final 2, which is a good number for the Brazilian team. The first was in 1962, which resulted in the number 2 title in Brazil, the second championship. And look, the team lost Pelé at the beginning of the tournament, but they had Garrincha. And Garrincha decided.

The final was against Czechoslovakia, which never again had a good result in Cups; Chile, the host, was third.

The second World Cup 2 was in 1982. It is the first World Cup I have clear memories of —also called traumas. I don’t remember the 1978 games, when I was 5 years old; but in 82 I already had 9, it’s firmly fixed in my head, for good, for bad and for Rossi, Paolo Rossi (“maledeto”).

It was the Brazilian team that gave me the most pleasure to see play, and brought me to tears after their painful elimination. The “maledeto” scored the three goals that eliminated Brazil, in a 3-2 against Italy. The Italians went through the first phase of the World Cup in Spain without beating anyone, with three draws and two goals scored. But they took the stride in the final phase, precisely against Brazil. It happens… in Hearts.

That Cup also saw its biggest defeat, Hungary 10 x 1 El Salvador. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose 10 to 1, seven will still go, but ten, what a blow. Another remarkable game was West Germany 1 x 0 Austria, a match that defined the classification of the two for the final phase and that became known as the “game of shame”. It was really awful. And it was Algeria who paid the price.

Brazil did not win the 1982 World Cup, but even today that team led by Telê Santana, with Zico, Falcão, Sócrates, Éder, Júnior, Cerezo and co., is remembered, and not only in Brazil. And Falcão’s celebration, when he tied the game against Italy 2-2, is still for me the most emotional celebration of a goal in the history of the World Cups, amplified by the dramatic narration of the insurmountable Luciano do Valle —an affective opinion not open for discussion. .

Then came the third Cup with final 2, in 2002, in two countries: Japan and South Korea, the first played in Asia.

And, again, it was Brazil that had the greatest prominence on the field. He reached the penta after a 2-0 victory against Germany, in an innocent time in which Brazil was leading 2-0 against Germany – it’s always good to repeat. It is still the only World Cup in which the champion won all seven games in normal time.

It was the Copa da Redemption of Ronaldo, the Phenomenon, who made the biggest “comeback” (“return”, but it seems to be better in English) in football after detonating his knee in the middle of that cycle. That selection also had supporting actors with the weight of protagonists, such as Rivaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and Roberto Carlos, the “Rs” that made Galvão Bueno happy.

Among the strange results, we had Turkey and South Korea as semi-finalists. Have you ever thought what could have been the final? Completely unusual—or, as they say these days, random.

Let the fourth Cup come with a final 2, in 2022, which starts on the 20th, and 20 is Vinicius Jr.’s shirt number, in addition to being 02 backwards. Good thing I’m not superstitious.

round 38

Before the end of the slaughter in the 38 rounds of the Brazilian Championship, there was still time for Red Bull Bragantino to dismiss Maurício Barbieri. Thus, the score ended with a 4-2 for the foreign coaches: Abel Ferreira (today the longest-serving player in Série A), from Palmeiras, Vojvoda (Fortaleza), Vítor Pereira (who finished the championship with Corinthians, but has since left) and Luís Castro (Botafogo); for the Brazilians they scored Rogério Ceni and Dorival Jr. (which completed the tournament, albeit by two teams).