Brazil and coach Tite look to the swagger and panache of their 1982 World Cup side ahead of Qatar 2022

There are some games that live on long after the final whistle has blown.

One of them took place almost exactly 40 years ago, on July 5th 1982, when Italy bundled Brazil out of the World Cup with a 3-2 win which will stay long in the memory of anyone lucky enough to see it.

It was a truly great game. Italy – and striker Paolo Rossi – had suddenly caught fire.

After drawing all three of their group games they beat Argentina, Brazil, Poland and West Germany – all global powerhouses – to win their first World Cup since 1938.

They were a fine side, who played a magnificent game against the Brazilians – late on a fourth ‘goal’ was wrongly disallowed for a non-existent offside. But it was Brazil who everyone wanted to see.

True, you could pick holes in the Brazil side of 1982. Goalkeeper Valdir Peres was not great and the full backs, both top players, left plenty of space behind them – which Italy would exploit to perfection.

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And up front Serginho was the wrong type of centre forward for this team. A giant figure, he was happiest attacking crosses from the wings.

But he was too much of a blunderbuss to combine effectively with this midfield.

And what a midfield! Has the ball ever been treated better than it was by the exhilarating combination of Falcao, Cerezo, Zico, Socrates and Eder?

“The ball arrived in the midfield and disappeared to appear again in the form of a rabbit and also of a dove,” wrote Argentine coach Angel Cappa, “and then it was hidden again from anguished opponents who would look for it in the most unlikely places without being able to find it.”

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Cappa was in the stands for Brazil’s matches looking at his watch in an attempt to hold back the hands of time. He never wanted the magic show to end.

But it did – on July 5th, when Rossi scored his hat-trick and Brazil went home without even reaching the semi finals. So was it all worth it?

The World Cup in Brazil is a little like heads or tails. Either you win or you lose. There is nothing in between. And 1982 lost. The team had been weighed and found wanting.

Perhaps they had been too happy go lucky? Maybe the physical development of the game made it impossible to win with this flowing possession football.

They had to wait until 1994 for another World Cup win, with a team that had its virtues. But although it was well balanced, it lacked the charm and the panache of 1982.

The winning captain, Dunga, did not care. He referred to the 82 side as “specialists in losing” – an opinion which became more important a few years later when he became Brazil’s coach.

His side fell in the quarter finals of the 2010 tournament, and with their snarling counter attack football they made few friends along the way.

By then, the Guardiola revolution had already started at Barcelona. Brazil had come to the view that possession football was outdated, and that the central midfielders should be hulking figures able to win the 50-50 balls.

And then along came Barcelona to show them it was not true. At the end of 2011, to general astonishment in Brazil, Barcelona beat Santos 4-0, without breaking sweat, in the final of the Club World Cup.

Guardiola stuck in the stiletto. His team, he said, treated the ball the way that his grandfathers told him that Brazil used to do.

It was time for Brazil to take another look at 1982. If Spain was now seen as the home of the beautiful game, then Brazil could at least fight back with the memories of that World Cup.

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Current coach Tite cites the 1982 side as one of his references, and they can occasionally recapture some of the swagger of their predecessors from 40 years ago.

And this just whets the appetite for this year’s World Cup, and the epic confrontations that we are likely to see in Qatar. And Brazil’s revenge? None of those games is going to involve Italy.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk