Brazil immune to upset bug

“This is the start of a work looking ahead to the 2002 World Cup,” said Brazilian coach Wanderley Luxemburgo.

At the Copa America, Luxemburgo’s first major since taking over from Mario Zagallo last year, Brazil’s soccer has been a notch above the rest. The upsets, the tie-breakers, the heroes-for-a-day that have made the tournament a succession of surprises have not touched them.

Uruguay have been the giant-killer. Despite bringing a young and inexperienced team at the senior level, it has shown remarkable poise in upsets of Paraguay and Chile and has improved noticeably with each game.

Their trouble is, so has Brazil.

Luxemburgo has planted the seed of a more selfless philosophy and instilled a unity many thought the team lacked at the World Cup.

Against Mexico, Brazil had its finest game. Emerson, Ze Roberto, Ronaldo and Rivaldo took turns testing Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos.

“Brazil are the best team in the world,” Mexican coach Miguel Lapuente said. “They were well set up in back, controlled the game and counterattacked strongly. We tried to unsettle them and couldn’t. Brazil resolved everything as the game went along.”

URUGUAY already a winner:

Even if they don’t take home the Copa America, Uruguay already are a winner. The team of fresh-faced juniors, some barely out of high school, has captured the imagination of soccer fans in Paraguay. Who could help but like a team that, against heavy odds and some of the world’s highest-paid stars, has pulled off upset after upset with a mix of youthful exuberance and cool composure?

“These boys have been playing together for some time. They have poise. In the penalty shootout they didn’t miss…” Chile’s coach Nelson Acosta said after his team was eliminated on Tuesday night. “They’re young, but they beat us good.”

A final entry was more than what Uruguay bargained for. Head coach Daniel Passarella, the former Argentine star, kept his regulars home, opting to send the promising junior team, a side comprised mainly from the squad that finished second in the 1997 World Youth (u-20) Championship in Malaysia.

The start didn’t look promising. Uruguay drew the toughest qualifying group and lost to Argentina and Colombia. But a victory over Ecuador was enough to squeak in to the second round against host Paraguay.

No one gave Uruguay much of a chance against Paraguay, which had the veteran core of last year’s World Cup team. Trailing 1-0 late in the game, the youngsters tied it and went to penalty kicks. Again the shooters were perfect, and Carini made a providential stop for the upset victory.

“The players arrived here with no name and will leave the cup with great prestige,” coach Pua said.

Back home, they are already heroes.

Uruguayans opened their newspapers on Wednesday to see headlines trumpeting the achievement of the nation’s new idols and the wizard’ Pua. El Observador gave it the proper dimension: “Pua’s team has made an entire people tremble.”

Brazilian pressmen clowns, says Ronaldo

Ronaldo hit out at the Brazilian press, calling them clowns, for what he claimed was false information that he was angry when subsitituted in the Copa America semi-final.

He said there was no friction between him and coach Wanderley Luxemborgo.

“You are clowns,” he told journalists at a press conference. “Even if I did not get pleasure out of it, a coach has the right to make changes and even to take off a star player.”