JOHANNESBURG: Carlos Dunga's Brazil will never be the Beautiful Game. It is powerful, pragmatic and still a strong-enough team to be a contender to win this World Cup. And its willingness to mix the ugly with the excellent is a sad reflection on the world's most gifted soccer country.
Brazil's 3-1 victory Sunday against Ivory Coast, Africa's greatest hope, was never in doubt after Luís Fabiano scored the first goal. The video of Fabiano's goal could be used to teach children how to shoot.
Show them the anticipation with which Fabiano sets off between two defenders, knowing that Kaká will release the ball at the right second. Point out the balance, the composure, and then the singlemindedness with which Fabiano strikes the ball, generating awesome power with his shot from the instep of his boot into the top of the net.
His second goal, however, and what came after, is perhaps less suited for those learning the game.
In 1986, Diego Maradona scored against England on what became known as the Hand of God. It was a scoundrel's hand, and the world knew it. Now Fabiano has doubled the deception. He used his bicep to control the ball not once but twice, and the French referee Stephane Lannoy managed to miss both.
This hasn't be the best of days for the French, or for match officials.
Watching the game for television, Luis Felipe Scolari, the man who coached Brazil to the 2002 World Cup, joked: "Once with the hand is a foul. Twice with the hand is no foul. Is a new rule."
Ivory Coast Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said: "The first goal Brazil took very well. A quick combination between Kaká and Fabiano, they did it very well.
"It's difficult to cope with Fabiano, but its more than difficult when he is allowed to handle the ball not once, but twice. They got a goal free, and its a 2-nil goal that changed everything."
Eriksson, however, was less eagle-eyed on the sending off of Brazil's playmaker Kaká.
"Brazil shouldn't complain," he said. "He pushed Keita, I don't know how hard, but he pushed him, and for that you get a red card."
If only the coaches, and the players, were more honest. The truth was that Kader Keita barged into Kaká, who used his arm to fend off the aggressor. Kaká's elbow brushed Keita's chest, whereupon Keita fell to the ground, clutching not his ribs but his face. The referee was duped and showed Kaká his second yellow card of the game, and thus an expulsion.
It will not greatly harm Brazil because the victory assures it of a place in the second round. Kaká will miss one match, against Portugal, a match that is of little consequence in terms of points to Brazil. He will then return fresh, rested, and with a clean disciplinary slate for the second round.
But what of Keita? If FIFA's slogan "Fair Play" is to mean anything, the organization should review the video, which clearly shows that Keita cheated the spirit and the letter of the law. And if Kaká's card is not rescinded, then a match ban for the deceiver would send a message that soccer is a game, not a battlefield where one man deliberately gets another ejected.
There was no question that Brazil deserved the points. But how many games should FIFA give to a referee who misinterprets two of the three most significant moments of a game? Fabiano laughed when he was asked about the handball, laughed and admitted he did it. Keita seems to think it was a clever play to get one of the great players in soccer wrongly ordered to the stands.
Justice could only be served by a complete review of this match by the referees' committee. And wrongs righted for the good of the game.
It will not happen. After the refereeing commotion at the end of the United States-Slovenia game, FIFA pre-emptively told journalists not to bother to ask at a referee's open day on Monday any question specific to match decisions.
What might the news media be allowed to ask then? The authorities' lips are sealed.
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Show them the anticipation with which Fabiano sets off between two defenders, knowing that Kaká will release the ball at the right second. Point out the balance, the composure, and then the singlemindedness with which Fabiano strikes the ball, generating awesome power with his shot from the instep of his boot into the top of the net.
His second goal, however, and what came after, is perhaps less suited for those learning the game.
In 1986, Diego Maradona scored against England on what became known as the Hand of God. It was a scoundrel's hand, and the world knew it. Now Fabiano has doubled the deception. He used his bicep to control the ball not once but twice, and the French referee Stephane Lannoy managed to miss both.
This hasn't be the best of days for the French, or for match officials.
Watching the game for television, Luis Felipe Scolari, the man who coached Brazil to the 2002 World Cup, joked: "Once with the hand is a foul. Twice with the hand is no foul. Is a new rule."
Ivory Coast Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said: "The first goal Brazil took very well. A quick combination between Kaká and Fabiano, they did it very well.
"It's difficult to cope with Fabiano, but its more than difficult when he is allowed to handle the ball not once, but twice. They got a goal free, and its a 2-nil goal that changed everything."
Eriksson, however, was less eagle-eyed on the sending off of Brazil's playmaker Kaká.
"Brazil shouldn't complain," he said. "He pushed Keita, I don't know how hard, but he pushed him, and for that you get a red card."
If only the coaches, and the players, were more honest. The truth was that Kader Keita barged into Kaká, who used his arm to fend off the aggressor. Kaká's elbow brushed Keita's chest, whereupon Keita fell to the ground, clutching not his ribs but his face. The referee was duped and showed Kaká his second yellow card of the game, and thus an expulsion.
It will not greatly harm Brazil because the victory assures it of a place in the second round. Kaká will miss one match, against Portugal, a match that is of little consequence in terms of points to Brazil. He will then return fresh, rested, and with a clean disciplinary slate for the second round.
But what of Keita? If FIFA's slogan "Fair Play" is to mean anything, the organization should review the video, which clearly shows that Keita cheated the spirit and the letter of the law. And if Kaká's card is not rescinded, then a match ban for the deceiver would send a message that soccer is a game, not a battlefield where one man deliberately gets another ejected.
There was no question that Brazil deserved the points. But how many games should FIFA give to a referee who misinterprets two of the three most significant moments of a game? Fabiano laughed when he was asked about the handball, laughed and admitted he did it. Keita seems to think it was a clever play to get one of the great players in soccer wrongly ordered to the stands.
Justice could only be served by a complete review of this match by the referees' committee. And wrongs righted for the good of the game.
It will not happen. After the refereeing commotion at the end of the United States-Slovenia game, FIFA pre-emptively told journalists not to bother to ask at a referee's open day on Monday any question specific to match decisions.
What might the news media be allowed to ask then? The authorities' lips are sealed.
