Flair makes football beautiful but you need more to win, ask Germany

There were many depressing sights for Brazilian fans on Tuesday night but seeing Miroslav Klose drive the ball into the net from six yards must have been an especially bitter blow.

With that goal, Klose secured one of the most cherished landmarks in football, surpassing Brazilian legend Ronaldo’s record of 15 goals in World Cup tournaments.

The comparison between Ronaldo and Klose sums up why most neutrals around the world favoured Brazil over the Germans in the semi-final.
While digesting the events in Belo Horizonte, for example, it struck me that despite having squandered most of my life watching football, I can’t remember, off memory, a single goal which Klose has scored in previous tournaments.

In many ways, the gangly striker typifies the stereotype of German teams: efficient, simple, effective and ruthless.
His goals tend to be poached from inside the box and they are decidedly unspectacular.

Brazil’s Ronaldo, though, was something else; and it is fair to say there are few football fans who don’t have fond memories of his goals.

My favourite was one of the simplest yet most brilliant goals I have seen, against Turkey in the semi-final of the 2002 World Cup. The Brazilian striker collected the ball outside the box and was immediately surrounded by around four Turkish players in their all-red kit.

Head down, Ronaldo charged towards the 18-yard line and, instead of steadying himself to shoot, he simply toe-poked the ball in a flash beyond the despairing dive of Turkish goalkeeper Rustu and the ball was nestling in the net long before the commentator and most of the crowd knew what had happened.

It was an absolute master-stroke. And it all rested on the timing of the shot. The Brazilian had a way of stroking the ball at a time when you thought he was controlling it and such shots were simply impossible to stop.

At club level, he did almost exactly the same thing when Real Madrid played Manchester United at Old Trafford in the 2002/03 season when he received a through pass and, while Rio Ferdinand and goalkeeper Fabian Barthez thought he was taking control of the ball, he simply tapped it from quite a distance into the net. He wheeled away in celebration while the rest of the world absorbed the fact the goal had already been scored.

In this aspect of his game, Ronaldo resembled the man whose number nine shirt he inherited, Romario, another legend who seemed to score with an economy of effort, simply by finding the corner of the net where the goalkeeper could not reach and chipping the ball there.

Such skills cannot be taught. Sadly for Brazil, the nation that has won more World Cups than anyone else, they were always being unrealistic in expecting that their land – like the rolling hills of Iten which produce world-beating athletes year after year with almost no investment by Kenyan authorities – would continue springing forward the football geniuses that have helped the country conquer the world.

One hopes that we will not continue writing about magical Brazilians only in the past tense and that the country will bounce back from the horrors of Belo Horizonte and re-establish itself as a world power.

Naturally talented

One must, of course, pay tribute to Germany. Success, especially when you are not fortunate enough to produce naturally talented players such as Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Romario, Roberto Carlos, Denilson and now Neymar, comes through careful planning and heavy investment.

In England, much of the analysis of the German team’s success has focused on the country’s massive investment in youth systems.

Six members of the team which started against Brazil – Manuel Neuer, Benedikt Hoewedes, Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng, Sami Khedira and Mesut Ozil – played in the 2009 European Under-21 Championship final just five years ago, which shows that patient investment in youth can yield serious dividends.
This is a lesson for Kenya and others. In the 1980s, the Kenyan high school system was a major pipeline of talent and in the 90s, the Coca Cola under-17 youth championships offered a chance for players across the country to shine.

Today, there is nothing. Another little story published before the World Cup illustrated how careful and meticulous the Germans were in preparing for the tournament.

Most of the 32 teams at the World Cup simply opted to stay in hotels near the stadiums where their group games would be held. By contrast, after the World Cup draw was made, the Germans built from scratch a whole new purpose-built resort where the team would be based featuring 65 residential units, a training pitch, team headquarters, and a gym topped off with a view of the beach.

The resort is 45 minutes away from an airport and a two hour flight by private jet from the stadiums in which Germany was expected to play and is expected to be left to the local community as a youth training facility.

“Acclimatisation and recovery will play a major role at this World Cup, and our camp offers ideal conditions in these respects,” team manager Olivier Bierhoff said. “Due to the early kick-off times and the heat and high humidity expected in Salvador, Fortaleza, and Recife, we looked for a base where the players could adapt effectively to the kind of things they can expect to encounter during each match.”

Few can beat that for forward planning. Romantics will weep at the fate of Brazil and hope that the land permanently associated in the popular imagination with the beautiful game will find new stars and establish a system to match the galloping Germans.

Credit is due to the team from Europe but few fans pine for a decisive shift from the impulsive culture of the Ronaldos and Romarios to the efficiency of Klose and Mueller and many will hope this is not the last time the Brazilians are seen as a force on the world stage. Success, however, must be earned and won’t be handed out on a plate.

The World Cup winning star, Zico, offered this sensible response in the Guardian following Brazil’s defeat:

“Let’s be humble enough to applaud how Germany have reinvented themselves instead of just trusting that tradition would be enough to steer them through competitions. Brazil cannot simply believe their history will win games. That time has passed.”