NANTES, July 4: Sizzling Danish? By the final whistle last night even the world's most sophisticated team were gasping for air. If a wonderful night for Copenhagen narrowly eluded Bo Johansson's men, Brazil will recall this evening as one on which their World Cup ambitions came awfully close to ending up in a congealed mess on the floor.In the end there was the almost unique sight of Taffarel in the Brazil goal fretting like a man playing for a team of mortals. It is the 32-year-old's fate to have played in three World Cups yet still be universally dismissed as a waste of space.
After so long in the job last night was either his 97th or 99th cap depending which official list you support, and a record-equalling 16th in World Cup finals for Brazil this is pretty unfair, but a deep religious conviction has allowed him to deflect the cruellest barbs.
As with the prim office typist, we are left to fantasise about the day he casts off his shackles, abandons his lonely chores and shows everyone what he canreally do. There are signs this is happening to Taffarel, too. In training he has been playing a full part as a striker in penalty and free-kick practice.
"If it ends up in a shoot-out against Denmark, I'll be ready," he pleaded this week. "I'm not all that bad with a ball at my feet." His first duty last night was the more mundane one of picking the ball out of the net after Martin Jorgensen's 95-second opening goal, but thereafter he spent large chunks of a calm evening gazing upfield from the edge of his area.
The theory, of course, is that if he and Peter Schmeichel swapped places everyone else may as well go home. No goalkeeper in the world would have stopped either Bebeto or Rivaldo's inch-perfect first-half efforts, though, and Taffarel, bound for Galatasaray in Turkey after the finals for the cost of one of Denilson's toe-nails, may yet earn yet another glittering prize.
At least the efforts of the Danes, who won the 1992 European Championship after being recalled from the beach when the formerYugoslavia pulled out, may allow the Butlins method of big-match preparation to live on.
On Tuesday, as a sceptical L'Equipe put it, it was "golf, golf and more golf" followed by an above-board trip to McDonalds. "We have a very Danish way of doing things," said the striker Peter Moller with a grin. It almost worked once more. As for Brazil, in common with those bright yellow car headlamps still favoured on the Continent, they still prefer to dazzle their prey at the earliest opportunity. They dodged the brick wall last night but the road ahead is not safe yet.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
