Springfield MO Soccer

Everyone has a Brazilian moment, that moment when you realize that the Brazilian magic is not hype, when you see something on the field that no other team could duplicate, maybe not even in a practice, mine is when I watched Revilino score a goal by bending a free-kick around a wall of 10 players, at that moment I knew that …. Yes, Brazil are good.

Some players play for the love of their club or country, Brazil players play for a love of the game, a love and a need to break down defenses by using small passing triangles around flat back fours.

So it was with anticipation and excitement I made my way to Soldier field in Chicago, a stadium more renowned for American Football than Football, to watch the USA take on Brazil …… and I wasn’t disappointed.

From the moment we walked over the 18th street bridge to the final whistle the Brazilian fans tried to make it feel a little bit more like San Paulo than the South Loop. Inside the stadium the carnival atmosphere continued with the ratio of the 45,000 fans being split 50/50. The only thing that detracted slightly from this was the way the fans were distributed around the stadium, in football stadia around the world the away and home fans are highly segregated this makes for an incredible atmosphere as one group of fans tries to outdo the other, in Chicago, it was a much more friendly arrangement with little pockets of Brazil fans intermingled with little pockets of USA fans.

For an exhibition game ….. the game was good……6 goals, two blatant penalty kicks turned down and even an impromptu juggling act by Ronaldinho in the center circle while the USA trainers worked on Tim Howard to relocate a dislocated finger.

The Brazilians tried to work their samba magic on the uneven Soldier field pitch and on occasions, succeeded.

The USA side worked hard to run down the Brazilian playmakers and to stifle their space and on occasions, succeeded.

However, when the USA valiantly attacked and pushed up into the Brazilian half there was too much space available for the Brazilians to play and play they did, with enough back heels, flicks, step-overs and dribbles to fill a whole coaching manual and as we have seen so many times before their intricate passing patterns broke down the flat back four and eventually they beat the USA by 4 goals to 2 .

It was not all doom and gloom for the USA, they had spells when they looked flowing and accomplished and they even scored the first goal, but my guess is that only the most diehard USA fans were dreaming of an upset.

In the end, once again, Brazil showed us that they are an incredible football power, sure there are other football powers, like France, Argentina, Italy and Germany that are extremely good and on any given day can and have beaten Brazil, however, only on rare occasions are they capable of playing “the beautiful game”. Brazil is different; every Brazilian player seems to have a strand of “jogo bonito” in their DNA that creates a scintillating samba style of football that is well worth the price of admission…..maybe now is the time to start saving up for the 2010 World Cup, to hang loose with Ronaldinho and the boys from Brazil.

This soccer adventure involved a walk across Lake Shore Drive via the 18th Street bridge by my by my friend and former teammate, Ross McLean, a fellow who roots for Scotland, Rangers and Manchester United in that order. Former teammate Kathleen Dunbar Illes is pictured above with her husband Jeff (Miami of Ohio) and their sons.