Which opinions have you come around on?

[brokenshoelace]

Would you FUCKING STOP mentioning Brazil's 82 team? I was 9 years old and literally tried to murder my father, who is Italian.

Wow, Brazilians really were struggling to finish off Italians that year...

 

[Kieran]

They were so good but it looked like they lacked a finisher. From the videos I saw, after Pele, Brazil never had an excellent finisher until Romario. And not long after, Ronaldo came.

And the defence was leaky, too busy going forward to join the creative midfield in attacking. They should have left stuff that to Socrates and co..

 

[atttomole]

And the defence was leaky, too busy going forward to join the creative midfield in attacking. They should have left stuff that to Socrates and co..

True. They mostly enjoyed attacking. It took time for them to understand that the game was evolving, as it became more tactical.

 

[Kieran]

True. They mostly enjoyed attacking. It took time for them to understand that the game was evolving, as it became more tactical.

And funny enough, I think had they won the World Cup playing like this, it would have had a huge positive effect on football, encouraging teams to attack, whereas the opposite happened: I think it was only ten years later they did away at the back pass because the defensive mentality was killing the game.

 

[mrzz]

First things first: I sincerely hate you all.

They were so good but it looked like they lacked a finisher. From the videos I saw, after Pele, Brazil never had an excellent finisher until Romario. And not long after, Ronaldo came.

The attack in 82 was the back up. It was supposed to be Reinaldo and Zé Sérgio. Reinaldo was for a long time the record holder of goals scored in the national championship (only guy untill today to have an average above one goal per match in a full season). Zé Sérgio was not only good, but ultra fast. Both were injured and did not even traveled to Spain. In their places we had Serginho (in place of Reinaldo), who locally scored a lot of goals, but had a terrible world cup. In Zé Sergio's place we got Eder, who played pretty well, but still... It would be a whole different story with those two, maybe this team would have gone in history above the stellar 1970 one.

After 82 we had Careca (who played together with Maradona in Napoli), who was a fantastic scorer. He scored 94 goals while playing for Napoli (Maradona scored 115, but in almost twice the time). If our 86 team did not have had a brain meltdown against France (missing chances, penalty kicks and finally losing in the shootouts), his history could have been quite different as well.

Wow, Brazilians really were struggling to finish off Italians that year...

Blame the referee! My mother pulled me out of his throat.

And the defence was leaky, too busy going forward to join the creative midfield in attacking. They should have left stuff that to Socrates and co..

The two center defensive backs (I struggle with the name of football positions in English) were quite good. The left and right backs were quite talented, but as you said, they attacked more than defended... Junior (left back) later would play on midfiled (wearing the iconic number 10 shirt in most of the teams he played. That number is a badge of honor in Brasil).