Even in normal times, a fuss would have -- rightly -- been made of the 50th anniversary of Brazil's exhilarating 1970 World Cup win over Italy at Mexico's Estadio Azteca.
The current circumstances, with no live football, have brought the celebration forward and ensured it of a bigger audience. FIFA have given permission and this week the Brazilian public are time travelling, enjoying the six consecutive victories of a magnificent campaign from half a century ago.
The debate around the matches can enrich the experience. All of the talk certainly should help put to bed one of the lazy views of Brazilian football -- that it is a kind of carnival in boots, everyone concerned with expressing themselves and no one caring about defence, the team quite happy to concede six as long as they can score seven.
As a player in the triumphant sides of 1958 and 1962, Mario Zagallo -- who took command as coach in March of 1970 -- symbolized the quest to find a balance between attack and defence; he was a talented left winger who worked back in midfield. In 1958 Brazil had pioneered the back four. Twelve years later, under Zagallo's command, they were pioneers of the modern day 4-2-3-1.
But if Brazil had a tactical lead, they also were in front in terms of physical preparation. I once told Zagallo that as late as 1962, England went to the World Cup in Chile without so much as a doctor. He was so surprised he almost fell off his chair. He was well aware that, even in 1958, Brazil had a full back up team. There were doctors and a dentist, physical preparation specialists and even a sports psychologist. The latter proved premature, and had little to contribute. But the physical work was fundamental. At a time when many teams were happy to run a couple of laps round the field and then adjourn to the golf course, Brazil were attempting something more specialized.
In the post mortem after their failure in the 1966 World Cup -- Brazil were eliminated after losing two of their group games -- one of the many errors identified was that the physical training man came from a background of martial arts rather than football. In 1970 they would not be so careless.
By modern standards, the team had a scarcely credible amount of time to prepare for the World Cup -- more than three months. They used it well. The physical preparation specialist was Claudio Coutinho, an urbane and sophisticated figure who had extensive contacts in the United States. He got to know Kenneth Cooper -- of the famous Cooper test, designed to gauge fitness in the U.S. military. And Coutinho also worked contacts with NASA who had conducted extensive research in their human stress laboratory.
Brazil made good use of their work to prepare for a World Cup played in extreme conditions. Their first five matches took place in Guadalajara, in the fierce early afternoon sun of the Mexican summer. The final, in Mexico City, had the added complication of altitude. Brazil had prepared for it all -- and it showed.
The team's left winger Rivelino once told me that he could not recall a single occasion in the tournament when he went over to the touchline to drink water. And Zagallo pointed out that "we won most of our matches in the second half."
The numbers bear this out. Of the 19 goals Brazil scored in the course of the competition, 12 came after the interval. As their opponents ran out of gas, Brazil stepped on the pedal. Czechoslovakia were seen off in the second half of the opener, as were England in the next game, Uruguay in the semifinal and, most notably, Italy in the final. The first half against the Italians was an even game. After the break it was one way traffic, with Brazil coasting to a 4-1 win.
Brazil were certainly aware of the importance of their physical preparation work. Claudio Coutinho was the national team coach at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina -- and though that tournament did not go so well for him, he produced an outstanding team at Flamengo before drowning in a diving accident in 1981. And his assistant back in 1970 was Carlos Alberto Parreira, national team coach who ended the long wait for the country's fourth world title at the 1994 World Cup.
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