=======================================================
Subject: Re: Ronaldo better numbers than Vieri in Italy
Date: 27 Feb 1998 02:14:55 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)

mdpaserm@login5.fas.harvard.edu (Marco Paserman) writes:

> And why should I believe the Campeonato Brasileiro hype? How do I 
> know that Sport Recife is better than Brescia, Portuguesa is better 
> than Udinese, and Criciuma is better than Lecce?
> There is no evidence in either direction, unless you want to talk of
> a bunch of summer friendlies.

Marco, Marco... you don't know anything about the depth of Brasilian
soccer, do you?

Did you know that Zagallo has been consistently playing the F team (and
the Z team in the Gold Cup) just because he wants to use Europe-based
players for obvious marketing reasons?

Take Lampinho's case... I guess you probably never heard of Lampinho and
the wonderful things he has been doing in Matto Grosso. Everybody talks
about Roberto Carlos and his Tenerife thing, but forget to mention
Lampinho's free kick when the ball went around the wall THREE TIMES
before entering the goal. Do you think that if the likes of Lampinho
were allowed in the national team Roberto Carlos would stand a chance?
Because, you know, Lampinho also plays defence... real defence! He once
was the only defender against the whole team from Camboriu, which BTW
included the legendary Gaga'. That day the guys from Camboriu were
allowed to play with 27 players, because Abilio D'Almeida was trying to
impress a gorgeous garota from that city, and they couldn't go past
Lampinho, who also consistently dribbled dozens of camboriuenses in his
own box. That night, poor Abilio ended up comforting himself with
Corpinho, the skillful wing from Matto Grosso, but that is material for
another post...

Now I wonder how would the team look like with Cagao up front, instead
of the over-hyped Ronaldo. It's a well-known fact in the North West of
Rhondonia that Cagao was once able to make 34 defenders fell down
simultaneously with a single fake. He didn't score. Actually nobody
ever saw Cagao score, he's not interested. Utilitarian art is not art,
period. Zagallo is a toy of the multinational corporations so he will
never admit the likes of Cagao in his team. I'm sure Alex or Irineu can
tell you hundreds of stories about Cagao and his fellow striker Elninho.

So next time you want to discuss Brasilian soccer, try to inform
yourself first!
Cheers,

--
Marcelo

PS: Lampinho is a trade mark from Les Luthiers. Voce lembra, Lampinho?


-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Ronaldo better numbers than Vieri in Italy
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 22:57:54 -0500
From: Alex Mizuki (gt7290b@prism.gatech.edu)

[snip - completely misinformed information about Brasilian players]

No, no, no, you are the one who doesn't know a thing about Brasilian
football, Marcelo.  Everybody knows that the best strikers in the 
world are the fearsome duo of Babaca and Boco'.  

That stupid moron, Zagallo -- the only reason he's not using the
Babaca-Boco' duo is because "RoRo" sounds much better than
"BaBo" (which means "I drool" in Portuguese).  Zagallo fears
that such a pairing would constitute a confession of his senility.


============================================================
Subject: Re: Why Do So Many Brazilians Play In The J League?
Date: 27 Feb 1998 02:24:59 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)

Irineu Carvalho (carvalho@mit.edu) writes:
 
> Why to spend dozens of million dollars for a Del Piero, if every
> big team in Brasil has one young upcoming forward-playmaker at least
> potentially as good as him (you name it: Denilson at Sao Paulo, Sousa
> and Marcelinho Carioca at Corinthians, Hernani at Atletico Mineiro,
> Geovani at Cruzeiro, Juninho at Vasco, Rodrigo at Flamengo, 
> Ronaldinho and Tinga at Gremio and so on and on).

Once again you failed to mention Lampinho and Cagao, is that a
conspiracy? Is it because they play in Matto Grosso and Rhondonia,
respectively? I know Lampinho plays defence, but you are forgetting 
the day when he played #10 against Bage, who at the time had the
terrible Sadamao in defence. How fast we forget...


====================================
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 27 Feb 1998 05:49:59 GMT
From: marcelo@fc.hp.com (Marcelo Weinberger)

Carvalho (carvalho@mit.edu) wrote:

: To give you an example of Zagallo's stupidity, just to name one case:
: After Juninho's injury, Zagallo discovered that given that Giovanni
: (BTW back to good shape now) failed the sofa test in Le Tournoi,
: Brasil does not have any right-footed and successfully tested
: offensive midfielder.
: In spite of the abundance of lefties: Denilson, Leonardo, Zinho,
: Djalminha, Rivaldo, Rodrigo...
: ...Carlos Miguel, Sousa, Arilson, Alex de Sousa, Sergio Manuel!

: It is unbelivable that Zagallo did not take the chance to test some of
: the half dozen of righties that can be played at Juninho's place in
: France. [...]

: The most incredible absence is BETO. [...]

: Are there others? Of course.

: MULLER at Santos [...]
: MARCELINHO CARIOCA [...]
: JUNINHO (from Vasco) [...]
: BISMARCK [...]

You insist in ignoring both Lampinho and Cagao, not to mention Corpinho.
I will point this out in every thread about Brasil, until you admit that
they are the real A-teamers.


------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 01:30:19 -0500
From: "Miguel A. Ballicora" (ballicor@pilot.msu.edu)

How about Brazier? He is the perfect teammate of Corpinho.
Another terrific duo is Ze Marica and Ze Lacome. They know the moves
perfectly!
Let's not forget the amazing striker Casimiro Concarinho. Not at the
same level
of Ze Marica, but almost...

:-)

-----------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 27 Feb 1998 08:00:13 GMT
From: marcelo@fc.hp.com (Marcelo Weinberger)

With this depth of players who needs the likes of Ronaldo? Maybe Nike?

These ignorant Europeans don't understand that for every Denilson that
is sold to Europe there are dozens of much better players that stay in
Santa Ana do Livramento or Porto Velho. They don't know that Roberto
Carlos was never allowed to take a free kick while playing in Campeonato
Brasileiro, as he was never able to fulfill the minimum requirement of
making the ball go twice around the wall before reaching the goal.

Now, with Ze Marica the story is different. Apparently, the day that
Abilio D'Almeida had to comfort himself with Corpinho due to the loss of
the garota from Camboriu (see thread on Ronaldo vs. Vieri), Ze Marica
made a big deal about him not being chosen. That day, he kissed the
canarinha goodbye.

Banana nao tein carozo.


------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:21:13 +0100
From: Walter Garcia-Fontes (wgarcia@upf.es)

Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
> [...]

  Come on! How can you forget Cuerinho from Pelotas F.C., this guy is able to
dribble 10 players in 1 m^2! I would take him over Ze Marica all time, not to
speak about the likes of Lampinho, Meao and Cagao!

Walter Garcia-Fontes                                    "Tuya, Hector!"


-----------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 27 Feb 1998 17:51:36 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)

As the eternal problem of Brasilian teams has been the lack of huevos,
I always wondered why they never take some player from Pelotas...
Sarava!


------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 20:38:17 GMT
From: dolina@stealth.net (Juan Gonzalez)

I don't think it's so much a lack of huevos. That may be the case sometimes 
but most often the problem with Brazil is that they try to score the perfect 
goal and miss easy goals. Sometimes they also try to shoot it through the net 
so hard they wind up missing it more often than normal. In 1990 they should 
have beat Argentina for example but they tried to hit the ball so hard their 
shots weren't very precise. Then when they were losing they panicked and 
Argentina took the game away from them (some would call this a lack of 
huevos). The same happened against the US recently..


------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 27 Feb 1998 21:51:56 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)

Take Cagao, for example. Despite being one of the most
talented forwards in the world, as his victory in the
how-many-defenders-can-you-beat-in-the-1m^2-dribbling
contest would prove, he has never scored a goal. The
reason is that he is still looking for the perfect goal.

Once Matto Grosso visited Yaguarao (and you know that the
guys down there in Rio Grande are the best defenders), and
Cagao dribbled the whole Yaguarao team twice and still
didn't score. After his first round of dribblings he decided
that this wasn't perfect, as Ze Marica was able to slightly
touch the ball while being dribbled, so he decided to
dribble everybody one more time. This time, when he got to the
goal line, the not-so-astonished people in the stands (after
all, this kind of thing is not so uncommon in the Campeonato
Brasileiro) thought "that's it, here you have a perfect
enough goal." They didn't realize how high Cagao's standards
were: Cagao did not put the ball between Concarinho's legs,
which was clearly unacceptable. So he tried a third time but
meanwhile the ref had allowed these cheaters from Yaguarao
(too much South I guess) to field 17 more players, and so
Cagao is still looking for the perfect goal.

Anyway, Cagao remains o mais grande do mundo. Sarava,
--
Marcelo

------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 5 Mar 1998 23:36:01 -0700
From: mazzare@primenet.com (Ariel Mazzarelli)

I am surprised, Marcelo, perhaps you did not want to recall the time when a 
transplanted porte~o living in Poxoreo had arranged a tour of the Matto Grosso 
for Pe~arol, promising easy games, easier money, and even easier garotas. 
After a narrow loss against Barra do Bugres (the porte~o had tricked the 
visitors by informing them that their opponents were a "barra de bagres")
and a clear defeat at the feet of Rosario Oeste (Pe~arol foolishly assumed 
that they could not be better than Rosario Central), the bus rolled into 
Cuiaba looking for hotel fare. As it passed by a dirt lot Spencer saw
Cagao practicing his planchas against a goalpost and immediately reached
for the barf bag. When Cagao saw the bus, he ran up to a ball--and you know,
the balls in those days were not the beach balls that we have today; when
you kicked them, they kicked you back--but I digress, Cagao goes up to the
ball and he hits it with comba at the bus, where it goes in through one of
the two open windows on the left side, goes out the only open window on the
right side, comes back into the remaining open window on the left side,
and lands totally still at the feet of the catatonic Spencer. Mazurkiewicz, 
who had had enough by then, waited until an hour before the game to complain 
of a bout of indigestion from the previous night's ghiso do anacondas and 
stayed back at the hotel "to rest". I once talked to the petiso in a bar in 
Montevideo (I was only six years old, so I could not stay long) and trying 
my best to look innocent I asked him if anybody was better than Pele. So he 
told me, after making me promise not to tell anybody else, about Cagao. 
He was all smiles while he told me about Cagao's amazing bola reseca, but when 
I asked him "so are you ever going to visit him again?" he turned pale and, 
not wishing to strike someone shorter than himself, he quickly walked away. 

You know why Pele got to be on the selecao in 1958 instead of Cagao, right?


------------------------------------
Subject: Re: More thoughts on Brazil
Date: 6 Mar 1998 22:44:46 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)
 
Is this the same porten~o that before moving to Poxoreo came to
Montevideo and toured the streets of Goes, Capurro, and Maron~as,
looking for a centerhalf for the then underrated porten~o club Dock Sud?
The idea was to add some huevos and some much needed innocent tackles 
to a side that was being taken as a punching ball by their feared
opponents in Divisional C. Seating in a bar in La Union, after a few
grappas and with two cigars on each side of his mouth, his local contact
Paco Casallini convinced him that El Vasco Trolechea was the man for
him. El Vasco didn't enjoy much his stay at Dock Sud, except the day
that the barra brava of Nueva Chicago started his usual chant "Los de
Dock Sud son todos putos." This is the story behind your man's exile in
Poxoreo.

> [Pen~arol's bus in Cuiaba] 
> [...] and lands totally still at the feet of the catatonic Spencer.

You forgot to mention that Spencer then shouted: "Idiot! I wanted the
ball in my head, no at my feet! Can't you learn from El Pardo Abbadie?"

> I asked [Mazurkiewicz] if anybody was better than Pele. So he told
> me, after making me promise not to tell anybody else, about Cagao. 

Actually, Mazurka played his first game for Pen~arol against Pele and
his Santos guys in the third semifinal game of the 1965 Libertadores in
Buenos Aires. That was the mother of all soccer games and Pele was
hapeless against El Chiquito. No wonder he gave you the right answer:
Cagao.


=======================================
Subject: Re: Denilson..best midfielder?
Date: 6 Mar 1998 23:25:22 GMT
From: marcelo@fc.hp.com (Marcelo Weinberger)

Alex Mizuki wrote:

: Denilson is perhaps the most talented midfielder, but probably
: not the best. [...].  I really can't think of
: any player in the past to compare him to, though.

Try Lampinho.


==========================
Subject: Re: Ronaldo Assis
Date: 10 Mar 1998 05:47:14 GMT
From: marcelo@fc.hp.com (Marcelo Weinberger)

1visitor@pop.rio.nutecnet.com.br wrote:

: Assis, brother of this same Ronaldo, appeared some years ago as a big
: sensation and still in his teams got a signed contract with an
: attorney to go play in Italy. It was a whole novel until the brazilian
: team finally managed to keep its young player. It turned out that, in
: spite of a few good games, Assis never really established himself as
: the star people expected from him.

: Further back in time, around early 80s, Gremio and its rival
: Internacional went to almost extremes trying to win the priority over
: a short black kid with a funny nickname, "Tia Joana". There were even
: reports of an attempted kidnap by some directors, so obsessed they
: were after seeing the young midfielder in action, especially the
: precision of long passing.

: Gremio won the round and took Renato Lima (the kid didn't like the
: nickname. "Lima"was to differentiate from the other Renato, tagged
: "Gaucho" in Rio) which then joined a team which was reaching the
: highest trophies in the club's history. Paulo Cesar Caju, veteran of
: World cups 70 and 74, once said something like "-He knows way more
: than I do, he knows nearly all there is to know with a soccer ball.
: Problem is the head."  Caju certainly had a point. Raised in very poor
: background and without effective counseling, Renato Lima lost the
: battle against his own self, long nights and drinking pulling him away
: from glory. Watched less gifted players become stars.

: So now every time there is a young new sensation at Gremio's youth,
: people there think first of a curse-like fear named "Tia Joana".

Now you guys tell me who is more real: Cagao, Lampinho, Meao, Corpinho,
Concarinho, Ze Marica, and other mythical players that have recently
conquered RSS, or these Caju-Assis-Tia Joanna characters... Brasil is a
wonderful place to understand that reality is not really important.
Sarava!


---------------------------
Subject: Re: Ronaldo Assis
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 03:21:16 -0500
From: A Mizuki (gt7290b@prism.gatech.edu) 

And Uruguay is a wonderful place to understand that the reality of a
pathetic national team can be disguised in the light of "tradition."  A
tradition that requires an archeological excursion to find any meaningful
results.  And Marcelo, you can't really blow 1950 in my face because it 
means nothing to me -- it occured 25 years before I was born.  I look
forward to seeing Uruguay in France :-P


--------------------------
Subject: Re: Ronaldo Assis
Date: 10 Mar 1998 15:15:43 GMT
From: mdpaserm@login5.fas.harvard.edu (Marco Paserman)

The point is not really about Uruguay's tradition and achievements
(including a serious Copa America in 1995 and others in the '80s).
It's about how the rest of the world is a bit tired of hearing about
all these mythical Brazilian 17-year olds who can do marvels with the 
ball in the Rio Grande do Sul State Championship, and who would
stun the world if only they were given the chance to play in any 
top European League. Because the reality is that in 1994 Brazil's
offensive midfielders were Zinho, Mazinho and Rai, and that Brazil's
current number 10 can't even start in Serie A in place of a 35-year
old Italian who couldn't even lead the Metrostars to the MLS playoffs.
(no disrespect intended to MLS fans)

Every country has its own virtual reality: Italians like to believe 
that Serie A is the toughest competition in the world, and that nowhere
are defenses as strong as ours, or is there so much ractical awareness and
discipline. The English like to think that their league is the most
exciting, and that nobody in England ever fouls, cheats or dives (well, at
least until their league was contaminated by all those bloody
foreigners...). Real Madrid fans like to think that they are the best
team in history because they won 5 EC1's back in the '50s. And Uruguayans 
like to believe that they are still the football masters, or at least 
that they have the highest quality/population ratio, even though probably
today they would be crushed by Norway... 

Back to Cagao: this whole discussion reminded me of some very 
clever South American agents and some very dumb Italian team owners 
back in the early '80s, when Italy had just reopened its gates
to foreigners. That's how Serie A got to admire the marvellous skills
of Luvanor, Pedrinho, Fortunato (Argentinian), Victorino (Uruguay),
and the unforgettbale Luis Silvio of Pistoiese...I'm sure Pistoiese
fans have still to see an equally gifted player in all the years 
they've been wandering between Serie C1 and Serie C2...


-------------------------
Subject: Re: Ronaldo Assis
Date: 10 Mar 1998 19:27:07 GMT
From: marcelo@apollo.HP.COM (Marcelo Weinberger)

Alex Mizuki writes:
> And Uruguay is a wonderful place to understand that the reality of a
> pathetic national team can be disguised in the light of "tradition."

You are so humor-impaired that you cannot even understand that I'm
actually praising Brasil. I think that it was a Brasilian anthropologist
who roughly classified South American cultures into three types: cultures
that were just transplanted from Europe (Argentina, Uruguay, and to some
extent Chile), cultures that were the result of European domination over
the local population (all the others except Brasil), and then Brasil is
a unique creation, an exciting blend that does not exist anywhere else.

The perfect blend between reality and myth was magically described in
Black Orpheus. BTW, Cagao was an extra in that movie.