Regarding the 1994 World Cup in the United States, last time we talked about Italy's promotion process, and today we will talk about another team that has advanced to the final, Brazil.
Speaking of Brazil, it is definitely the biggest winner of this World Cup, when the world football, Brazil, Germany and Italy three strong teams are three times to win the World Cup, and Brazil's last cup is back to 1970, has passed 24 years, in these 24 years, world football has undergone earth-shaking changes.
From the perspective of technical and tactical development, confrontation continues to increase, defense is more and more valued, concise and practical play is more favored, becoming the mainstream of development, and these changes, for Brazil's pure art football, is not very favorable, they can still play wonderful and beautiful games, but to win the championship of the competition has a more and more difficult trend.
Especially after the 80s, Brazil's best record in the World Cup is the quarterfinals, and in the 1990 World Cup in Italy, it was in the 16-in-8 match, under the condition of full suppression, it was defeated by the Argentine team led by Maradona, which was a major tragedy of the tournament.
Therefore, in the 1994 World Cup qualifiers, in the formation of the national team, especially the establishment of the main playing style, in the Brazilian football circle, it was controversial, some people think that Brazil is to stick to their own artistic football road, and the other part of the people think that they should cater to the trend of world football and strengthen the intensity of confrontation and defense.
With the process of qualifiers, the team continues to run in, then the head coach of Brazil, Pereira, is more inclined to the latter, this can also be understood, that is, who leads the team to play the game, the pressure of the results is on who, just want to play beautiful football, always do not produce results, the pressure of the head coach is also very large, especially the head coach of the Brazilian team in the football kingdom, there are too many commentators to face.
And Pereira chose pragmatism, which offended some domestic conservative forces, especially before the expedition to the United States, when determining the big list, Pereira was under great pressure, he abandoned some of the more famous, technically fancy big stars, the use of some relatively tough, more holistic players, especially some players who played in Europe, they were more aware of and adapted to the mainstream football at that time, and they were more experienced in fighting against the European powers, and some of the candidates in the midfield did not seem to be well-known.
In terms of the way of playing in technical warfare, Pereira has developed a set of concise and pragmatic playing styles for the Brazilian team, which has proved to be a very effective set of playing styles.
Basically, in the defense of the midfield, it is inclined to the European way of playing, using more confrontational players, the game adopts the combination of staring at people and regional defense, paying attention to the maintenance of the overall team, emphasizing tactical discipline, and not allowing easy pressure.
In the past, the Brazilian team always lost in the knockout rounds, that is, the players played more casually, the team as a whole was not enough, the fight was rising, and the defenders did not care, which was counted, so when facing the team in Europe that pays more attention to the overall cooperation of technology, it will suffer losses.
This time Pereira is demanding that the defender line must stand in place, no matter how difficult the situation is, or when leading by a large score, it cannot lose the position and strictly enforce tactical discipline.
In order to strengthen the defense, the midfield also sent a defensive heavy force, Dunga, as the best defensive midfielder in The history of Brazil, was entrusted with the task of captaining, and also used Silva and Mazinjo, both of which were also defensively stronger than attacking, Mazinjo's Lecce team in Serie A at that time also played a defensive back position.
The only real attack in midfield is Ray, the younger brother of the famous Brazilian star Socrates, who was playing for Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1.
On the offensive side, Pereira did not design any complicated tactics, that is, he chose two strikers with the best shooting skills, one Romario and one Bebeto, both from La Liga, one for Barca, one for A Coruña, one for 28 years old, one 30 years old, both of whom have been working hard in Europe for many years, at the peak of their ability, and when they play against European teams, they are not left behind.
So simply put, Pereira's way of playing at that time was to pay attention to defense, after getting the ball in the midfield, with the excellent skills of the Brazilian players, the ball was controlled, first of all, not to lose the ball, through the mutual passing, pushed to the midfield, depending on where the two forwards were, directly passing the ball to them, and the goal was handed over to their brothers.
So looking back at brazil's road to advancement, they didn't score many goals, and these goals were basically done by two strikers independently, that is, by Romario and Bebeto, they completed the Brazilian team's offensive task.
Such a way of playing, from the perspective of ornamentality, does have a gap with the previous Brazilian team, and it is also criticized by Brazilian public opinion, but it is such a pragmatic way of playing that brings Brazil to the final of the World Cup, and wins the championship in one fell swoop, becoming the first team in world football to win the World Cup four times, defending the dignity of the Brazilian football kingdom.
Let's take a look back at Brazil's path to victory.
In the group stage, Brazil was divided into a group with Cameroon, Sweden and Russia.
In the first match against Russia, although the gap between the two sides was not large from the scene, the Brazilian team in a corner attack, by Bebeto opened a corner, the middle of the goal in front of the goal of Romario astutely rushed in front of the defensive defender, with the right foot directly rub, the ball into the net, from this first ball, Romario and Bebeto combined power began to appear.
Then it was Romario, after taking the ball in front of the penalty area, first turned around to get rid of a defender, and then quickly started a trip forward to pass another defender and burst into the box, causing the Russian defender to hastily foul his foot, was awarded a penalty, and the no. 10 on the field Layi scored the ball, and Brazil won the opening red 2:0 steadily.
In this tournament, Layi only scored such a penalty, in Pereira's tactical system, Layi did not have much room to play, and he also became the worst 10th player in the history of the Brazilian national team.
The second game of the group stage is against Cameroon. Brazil took the opponent 3:0 lightly, and cameroon did nothing throughout the match, without causing any trouble for Brazil. Brazil's team first received Dunga's wonderful pass from Romario, burst into the box under the defense of two defenders, and faced the goalkeeper who attacked, the tiptoe of the foot was gently poked, and the first to take the lead.
Then, in a wing attack, the assist of the right-back Jurjinho, the ball was hoisted into the box, and the no. 15 Santos who pressed the assist in the middle of the road rushed to the top with a beautiful header and scored another goal, which was also a rare time in this game that the Brazilian defender pressed the assist to score, especially the center-back Santos, under the tactical requirements of Pereira, rarely overpowered the half.
Maybe Cameroon in this game really can't organize an effective attack. Right-back Jurginho also performed very well in this tournament, playing for Bayern in the Bundesliga.
The last ball, Romario burst into the box with the ball, after throwing off the defense, the goalkeeper who attacked destroyed the ball to the right side of the box, and Bebeto, who rushed from behind, pushed a small angle to lock the score at 3:0, which was another connection between the two.
In the last game of the group stage against Sweden, Brazil has locked up a qualifying place in the first two rounds of 2 wins and two wins, while Sweden has previously drawn and won, and is only one step away from the group qualification.
In the game, Sweden's Anderson shot from the outside back to hit a world wave first, and then Brazil Romario burst into the box to pull back a city, and finally the two teams drew, scoring one point each and both qualifying.
After entering the knockout stage, Brazil met the host Team Usa in the 16-8 match, when the head coach of the American team was the magical coach who later successfully coached the Chinese team, Milutinovic.
The strength of the American team was also limited, but under the tutelage of Milu, it still played the highest level, not only won the group qualification, but also performed well in the match against Brazil, and the game has been glued.
In the game, Brazilian left-back Leonardo elbowed the American player in a defensive and was sent off with a red card, which once made brazil tense.
The young Leonardo played left-back in the team at the time, but gradually matured, slowly grew into a midfield attacker, once played for AC Milan in Serie A, and played the number 10 in the Brazilian national team, serving as an offensive organization.
After he was sent off, the Brazilian team, which had one less person on the field, did not panic. At the crucial moment, the combination of Romario and Bebeto once again became threatening.
In an attack in the second half, Romario took the ball in front of the field, the neck sprinted away, the American team defenders defended the side of the retreat, Romario advanced to the edge of the penalty area, continuously changed backwards suddenly a small slash to the ground to pass the ball, pushed the ball into the box, Bebeto understood, cut into the box with a foot to push, broke the deadlock on the field, with this ball, Brazil won a goal over the United States, smoothly advanced.
I have to say that this tournament, due to Pereira's tactical design, it seems that Brazil is not particularly exciting, and there are not many goals, but carefully recalled, it is also a classic.
And Romario, who shocked the football world with the name of the lone wolf, has also done a very good job in the integration with the team, not greedy at key moments, often cooperating with teammates and staging wonderful moments.
Therefore, it is not that the lone wolf cannot pass the ball, it depends on whether he is happy or not.
And to say that the most classic game of this World Cup is the 8-in-4 match to be mentioned below, Brazil vs. The Netherlands.
The Netherlands scored six points for two wins and one loss in the group stage, and after calculating the winner-loss relationship, they qualified first in the group and beat Ireland 2-0 in the quarter-finals to reach the quarter-finals.
This Dutch team has experienced the baptism of the European Cup in 1992 and entered the final moments of the era of the old three musketeers, only Rijkaard is still in the team, and the new three musketeers composed of Overmars, Bergkamp and Roy have been fully replaced, plus the rise of the Depol brothers and new forces such as Jonker, Winter, and Taument, the strength is really good.
The game was relatively flat throughout the first half, both sides were glued, and there were not many opportunities, but the game went on to the second half of the storm, staging a big drama of ups and downs.
The drama began from 52 minutes, the Dutch team did not form a threat in an attack, the ball was cut off by the Brazilian center-back, took a step forward, directly up the big foot to find the left side of the front of the field of The bebeto, Bebeto received the ball from the left rib of the big box to the left side of the box burst, saw Romario in the middle of the high-speed into the penalty area, a timely cross-foot pass pushed the ball to the middle of the box, only to see Romario in the middle of the road, the ball to the person, without adjustment, directly a light shot with the right foot, the ball flew into the net cleanly.
From launch to the end, the ball only experienced a center-back and two forwards, a total of 3 people two feet passed, can be called a textbook quick counterattack, and Romario's shot looks simple, but it is actually a very difficult shot, the timing of the grasp, the use of footwork, is not something that idle people can control.
The deadlock of the game was broken, it can be said that a stone stirred up a thousand waves, less than 10 minutes, the Brazilian team expanded the score, this time is the performance moment of Bebeto, the emergence of this opportunity, it is the Brazilian captain who passes to Romario, Romario did not get the ball, but his scramble interfered with the Dutch defenders, resulting in a mistake in the Dutch team's defense, the ball fell to the feet of the fluttering Bebeto, Bebeto took the ball directly into the box to form a single knife, facing the famous Dutch goalkeeper De Hue, who attacked, A light flick passed the opponent and hit the empty door to win.
After Bebeto scored, the scene of celebrating with Romario and Bazinjo dancing a cradle dance has also become an eternal classic picture in the World Cup.
To be honest, these two goals are very exciting, from the perspective of opportunity creation, they are not the individual breakthrough of traditional samba football or the formation of small team cooperation, but in this link of shooting, it fully shows the unique artistic charm of Brazilian football, it can be said that these two goals include this game, which is a microcosm of the Brazilian team in this game.
Of course, the reason why this competition is called the most classic of the competition is precisely because the game is far from over, to be precise, the excitement has just begun.
As I said just now, the strength of this Dutch team is really not weak, the second half of the game two goals behind is not flustered, to the Brazilian team may be a little relaxed, the Dutch team first by Bergkamp to pull back a goal, and then in a corner attack, by Winter's header equalized.
Just when people think that the game may have to play extra time, Brazil's left-back Blanco is not willing to be lonely jumped out, to be honest, Brazil is not rich in excellent defenders, but the left-back position is a frequent phenomenon of left-back, now Marcelo does not say, backwards, the most famous is Carlos, and before Carlos, it is necessary to talk about this Blanco.
To put it bluntly, he was still a substitute left-back at the time, and the appearance of this game was only because the main left-back Leonardo received a red card on the field, and he was given the opportunity to play.
At the end of the game, Blanco assisted the attack in the left midfield, and when he advanced to the position of the penalty area, there was a dispute with the opposing defender, first he had a hand move to get rid of it, hitting the face of the Dutch defender, causing him to fall to the ground, but the referee did not see it, so Blanco continued to carry the ball forward, and was directly knocked to the ground by the Dutch defender on top, and the referee immediately awarded a direct free kick.
The Dutch team's defensive action is relatively large, it is indeed a foul, probably affected by Blanco's last foul action was not blown, and the emotions were not completely controlled.
But this little impulse caused a big disaster for the Dutch team, it was this free kick, Blanco personally took the penalty, the ball itself was far from the goal, but Blanco's penalty ball was fast, slightly curved, against the ground around the human wall, rubbing the column and flying into the net, so that the players, coaches and fans present were stunned!
Brazil used this wonderful free kick to eliminate the Netherlands to advance to the final four. In the semi-finals, Brazil met again with sweden, the opponents they had met in the group stage.
The semi-final match returned to the tone of the pre-quarter-final Brazil team, which is one word! It was Romario again, who unexpectedly broke the deadlock with a header when the game was glued, which was not common for him to break the goal in such a way, and it was enough to prove how finished Romario was in that cup, and finally Brazil eliminated the opponent 1:0 and met italy in the final.
In the final, we did not say too much, before the last issue, we said that overall, Brazil played better than Italy, and it was slightly superior on the field, but the Italian team's defense was also excellent, and in the end, the two sides still relied on penalties to decide the winner.
Brazil's cup, I personally think, for the development of Brazilian football has a very important significance, as the world's recognized football kingdom, in the question of how to develop, encountered confusion, practical football and art football in the end can not be integrated, in the competition of consecutive defeats, let them almost lose confidence, but in the end with this successful reform, or found the direction of development, but also defended the unshakable status of the football kingdom.
Well, we have so much to say about the performance of the Brazilian team in this cup, and in the next issue we will continue to talk about those unforgettable moments in this cup.