Soccer: Brazil's Magic Musketeers

In the gentle sunshine of late-afternoon training, most eyes are on the "super-god" players of Brazil ... Ronaldinho, "the gaucho", who has a blue bandanna on his head; Ronaldo, wearing a loose top, the kind of garment, the cynical are saying, that a boxer wears while he works on flattening his gut before he steps into the ring; the muscular Adriano, who would look like a fighter if stripped down to his toes; and the elegant Kaka.

But for once there may be a more compelling and significant sight than the almost formal skills displayed by the fabled "Magic Quartet". Certainly, it is something that brings an insight into the heart of a football philosophy which has dominated and enchanted the world for nearly half a century.

A group of players, led by Lyon's brilliantly consistent midfielder Juninho Pernambucano - men who can expect no more than a seat on the bench as Brazil pursue their sixth World Cup - are working on one of the most fundamental of tactics in the lexicon of their nation's game. It is keeping the ball among themselves, on this occasion in the air. They are being observed by an assistant coach at some distance and, though they have a casual demeanour, they are aware of it. If the ball touches the ground, and at times the wait seems to be an eternity, the culprit shrugs, then does 10 press-ups.

This is the statutory penalty for committing the ultimate crime in Brazilian football - giving up the ball to the opposition, needlessly.

For an English observer, it is a sudden, chilling look into another world of technical priorities. For a Brazilian, of course, it a matter of religious practice.

Catholics forswear meat on Fridays, orthodox Jews are fastidious about observing the Sabbath, Muslims take off their shoes upon entering the mosque. Brazilians don't give up the football. If they do, they have to atone.

Mario Zagallo, with Franz Beckenbauer the only football man to have won a World Cup as both a player and a coach, is 75 now and known as the "Old Wolf". But if, as team manager, he welcomes every scientific and medical development that makes a great footballer functional to an optimum degree, he nevertheless says: "You can make footballers stronger and fitter, more aware of their bodies but in the end it all comes down to how well they can control the ball when it matters most. You name almost any Brazilian star, from any age, and you are talking about someone with perfect technique."

There are other requirements, of course, and not the least of them is pride. Ronaldo, the hero of Brazil's World Cup triumph in Japan four years ago, is displaying a powerful streak of it as he seeks to rescue something from what many suspect are painful days of worry that his decline, physically and psychologically, has been pushed to a terminal point at Real Madrid.

One result was a much-publicised stand-off between the player and the president of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who issued a grovelling apology after Ronaldo's fiercely indignant reaction to the president's question - "is Ronaldo fat?". Ronaldo remains a privately seething figure at media suggestions that he is no longer the force that in two World Cups produced 11 goals - the third highest mark of all time.

Ronaldo says: "The press have a duty to report the truth, to be more serious about their responsibilities," as he seeks to redefine his presence in a potentially great Brazilian team.

It may be that "the gaucho" is the more compelling figure now as he luxuriates, cheerfully, in his status as the world's player of the year, but Ronaldinho is quick to say: "If we win, it will be because we are a team, and part of being a team is honouring our great players. Ronaldo has done so much for the team and I believe he can do still more."

Ronaldo was recognised as the world's best player three times and, as he approaches his 30th birthday, he insists he retains the defiant belief that, despite the incriminating girth, he can push back his horizons once more.

In the hills on the edge of the Black Forest, he talks with rare passion about the work that is left to be done, both by Brazil and himself. He says: "We can get better and we know we have to do that if we are to fulfil our one and simple goal ... to win this World Cup.

"To any Brazilian, anything else is failure. We did play well in 2002 - now we have to at least match that level, taking our chances and trying to emulate what we did then.

"I want to play a full part in helping the team to win another World Cup, and of course if I do that I will be delighted to break Gerd Muller's scoring record - but it is not the top priority. Regardless of what the press and the public say or think, the most important thing is that I have faith in my ability. I have never doubted that for a minute."

Given the roll-call of his achievement - he was taken to the 1994 World Cup in America as a 17-year-old who watched from the sidelines the combination of Romario and Bebeto leading Brazil to their fourth title - his palpable need to have an impact here is surprisingly intense.

It is almost as though his extraordinary redemption in Japan from the 1998 final in Paris, when he suffered what some said was the stress-induced equivalent of a nervous breakdown, never happened. "No, I don't think it is true that I have nothing left to prove. I don't think you can ever get to that stage. Every day when you are playing in a match, even training, you always have something to prove.

"I don't remember much about 1994, I was very young, but I do recall how hard I trained and tried to learn everything I would need to know if I was called up. But the coach we have now [Carlos Alberto Parreira] was in charge then, and he was very good, as he is today.

"Maybe tactically he is a bit more daring these days, which is good for the team."

Parreira is emphatic that Ronaldo is still a key figure, and the chances of Robinho - a second-half substitute for Ronaldo against Croatia this week - forcing his way into the team full time will have to await damning evidence that the sharpness and the enduring touch of the great man - a team-mate at Real Madrid - have finally fled.

Parreira says: "When people start questioning Ronaldo, it is a great incentive for him. For me it will be a surprise and a disappointment if he does not have a great World Cup. In the national team, a player is not just picked for what he's doing at the moment but also for what he has done in the past. Few have done more for Brazilian football."

At the training ground, Parreira's tribute is not exactly short of definition. Zagallo, who was coach of arguably the greatest Brazilian team of all, the team that Pele led so gloriously in an unforgettable final against Italy in Mexico City in 1970, has a word with Tostao, the brilliantly subtle striker of that team.

Tostao had to fly to Houston in Texas for an eye operation before the start of that tournament but, when it mattered, his vision was quite perfect. Now grey-haired men, they discuss some of the most tumultuous days of the greatest tradition football has known.

Zagallo, a member of the winning teams of 1958 and 1962, took charge of the 1970 legends after their creator, the fiery Joao Saldanha, who was a journalist and formerly a biting critic of the team, was removed from office after visiting the home of a fierce critic of his own armed with a revolver.

Ronaldo is dealing with his own tormentors somewhat more philosophically. He says he is bewildered by suggestions that his style is too close to that of his strike partner Adriano - "that makes no sense at all to me," he says.

"Yes we are similar players but I don't see why we can't do well together. It is just a question of developing an understanding. In training, I think you can see that we have that."

It is true there were a few tremors when the reserves beat their betters in a training game the other day, and reaction in some Brazilian quarters might have provoked Parreira's fiery predecessor to extend his armoury to an elephant gun.

Parreira merely pointed out that great Brazilian players tended to keep something back for when it mattered. And he believes they will not surrender anything cheaply - and not least, as we saw in the dying light, the ball.

- INDEPENDENT