Brazil aren't interested in playing pretty

Editor's note:
Yesterday Brazil completed their group engagements with a 4-1 win over Japan. At half-time score was 1-1. And it was Japan who took the lead. For a while the celebrated Brazilians were a bit ragged. There was never a chance of Brazil not winning the match but still..
They were reduced to another team, just looking for an equaliser and win.
Read another take now.

By Marcela Mora y Araujo in Guardian blog
The myth of the beautiful game is hogwash.
Like everyone else this team just wants to win. In Brazilian Portuguese, what has become universally acknowledged as the definition of the Brazilian style, aided by one of the most recognised sportwear brands, is the slogan Jogo Bonito.
By and large in England one hears this rendered as "beautiful game".
I would posit that this is incorrect. "Beauty"would be equivalent to "beleza", a word that peppers Brazilian music and poetry as well as football. "Bonito" is more like "pretty", or "aesthetically pleasing". Jogo Bonito is therefore henceforth "pretty play".
What a load of balls - or as we say in Spanish, "las pelotas". After Brazil's massively over-hyped World Cup debut on Tuesday, we were treated to the shocked disappointment of the punditry circuit. Brazil let us down. They were not whatwe expected them to be.
Ronaldo, whose weight has generated unspeakably large volumes of press comment, was not only fat but "shameful". It was almost as if spectators should be entitled to demand their money back. What a fiasco. The samba boys ripped us off.
The fact is that even though it's a distinct possibility that Brazil were not up to scratch, the level of expectation placed on that team is unlikely ever to be satisfied. And instead of shocked horror, I feel totally vindicated.
Coach Parreira said after the game: "The result was magnificent. We could have played better." In that order. Results first. This guy is a pro. Croatia had many chances and put up a good fight. From Brazil we saw what we usually see in competitive professional football, particularly when it comes to Brazil in recent years.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to dismiss their footballing supremacy. Even though I'm Argentinian (now I tell you) several hundred of my best friends are Brazilian, etc etc. But it is undeniably the case that in 2002 the final was an ironic clash between young German players who displayed a certain amount of skill and gusto against a ruthlessly efficient Brazil full of experienced warriors. Their antics throughout the tournament were so at odds with "pretty" notions of keepy uppy that some of the players were even fined for it.
Have players from other countries been fined hard cash for handling the ball, time wasting, dangerous hacking or diving? I will have to look into that. The point is, the marketing of Brazilian football as "pretty" has blinded us to the fact that current generations of Brazilian players areabove all professional competitors. Even the song chosen by the image makers to accompany the myth, the famous Mais que nada - More than Anything - contains a line, clearly audible in some cuts of the various adverts, which says "get outof my way because I need to get through."
The subliminal message of Brazil's footballing history is to win at all costs.
Nobody knows this more than the players themselves. A few years ago I interviewed Gilberto Silva, Arsenal's defensive midfielder, for a tick-sponsored magazine project. The remit was to get him to say "In Brazil winning is not enough, it's playing beautifully that counts."
This to a guy who is possibly the least stereotypically Brazilian efficient marker in the Premiership. Naturally, he was reluctant.
As a member ofa squad who lifted the coveted trophy without a single samba move throughout the 2002 tournament he was keen to point out that winning the World Cup for a fifth time was all the country had expected. Nobody cared how they did it.
"No, no, no, no, no" Gilberto told me time and again. It was almost as if he was saying something like "we enjoy dribbling with the back of our necks on the beach but when it comes to the real deal we like to win."
I won't go into the mysterious editing that took place before the interview appeared in print because it will only upset you. Suffice to say Gilberto's account was not what the tick wished to promote.
I once remarked to Ronaldo how sad he looked after the 1998 final. "We'd just lost 3-0 in a World Cup final!" he barked back. Whatever else had gone on it is obvious his sadness was due to not winning rather than not "playing pretty". There is plenty of beleza in Brazil, in their music, in their poetry, in their art, in their dressmaking, in their films, in their footballwriting and even - at times - in their football.
I remember being there in 1986,when France knocked them out of the tournament. That was a nation in mourning if ever I've seen one. You think they would have been disappointed if the squad had managed a victory by any means, fair or foul? Wrong again.
On Tuesday night they got three points. That's all they need at this stage. As long as they step onto the pitch ensuring their rivals remain full of fear, and manage even a single moment of lethal power which gives them the points - Kaka's goal was plenty genius for one match - we will see hundreds of thousands of Brazilians proudly waving the green and yellow from Hyde Park to Ipanema.
What Brazilians love is to win. And in this they are not alone.
Play pretty? What a load of balls.