Don’t tell the rare reader I didn’t warn you.
Because before leaving for Doha, I told you, in all the letters, that of the World Cups I covered, I only covered one in Brazil, in 1994, in the United States.
And let’s agree that it was the least exciting of the five achievements because on penalties and after a horrific 120 minutes of 0-0 in Los Angeles, under a sun of cracking castor bean.
The first on-site coverage took place in Spain, in 1982, and consecrated the unforgettable Tragédia de Sarriá, when a dream team lived the nightmare of facing Italy in an exquisite afternoon and ended up defeated by 3-2.
Under the command of Telê Santana, players you wanted to be friends with like Sócrates, Falcão, Leandro, Cerezo, Zico, were defeated and imagined having a second chance, in Mexico, four years later.
And there we went to bitterly defeat France on penalties, after the best Brazilian performance and a 1-1 draw.
As little drama is nonsense, in the same game, Zico and Sócrates missed kicks, Galinho during the game and Doutor in the tiebreaker.
True, not much was expected from the 1990 team, but anyway, we went to Italy to speculate.
And, again, in the best Brazilian performance, defeat by Argentina, 1 to 0, in a brilliant move by Diego Maradona for Caniggia to conclude.
It was a little too much for someone who had grown up listening to the radio and watching the selection on TV just to do well.
World champion at age 8, two-time champion at 12 and three-time champion, already a press professional, at 20.
Impossible not to identify your own feet as cold to the point of causing so much embarrassment and embarrassment.
But 1994 came and it faded.
Perhaps because the exceptional photographer Pedro Martinelli forced me to throw away the bag that I had carried over my shoulder since 1982 and exchange it for an elegant vest, with a pocket for each function, bought at Stanford. It was the bag!
Not even the vest worked in 1998, in France, in the face of Ronaldo Fenômeno’s convulsion and the 3-0 defeat imposed by the French was humiliating.
So, in 2002, World Cup in South Korea and Japan, 24 hours by plane, I chose to see the World Cup in Brazil.
It had been 20 years since the country had seen the big football party and it would be fun to see him enjoying games at dawn.
Brazil was five times champion…
Speaks seriously! Any citizen with a minimum of social responsibility will have to convince himself of his responsibilities and decline new coverage.
OK, OK, OK, to get rid of the schism, it doesn’t hurt to try one more time and off we went to Germany, in 2006, when the French Zidane dispatched us in the quarterfinals, which was repeated with the Dutchman Sneijder, in 2010, in South Africa, and with the Belgian De Bruyne, in 2018, in Russia, not to mention the strange episodes that happened in Brazil itself, in 2014, in the Germanic surroundings of Mineirão.
Hence, there is no surprise with the trick played by the “Croatians” who inspire these lines, especially the sorcerer Modric, another European to send us home early, this one with the complicity of goalkeeper Livakovic and, of course, Neymar and company , incapable of playing football at the height of the generations that preceded them, even those that did not win.
As Tite ended his cycle before even knowing what result he would get in Qatar, it would be great news if Neymar also decided to end his.
Because mine, in World Cups, calm down rare and rare, has come to an end.
As a seasoned news journalist, I bring a wealth of experience to the field. I’ve worked with world-renowned news organizations, honing my skills as a writer and reporter. Currently, I write for the sports section at News Bulletin 247, where I bring a unique perspective to every story.
