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Search: ' Cafu'

Stories

Caucasus calling

Saul Pope looks at a rising challenge to the traditional elite of Russian football, with plenty of money and some famous faces

Since its creation in 1992 Moscow sides have largely dominated the Russian top flight,  winning 14 of 19 league titles and taking the lion’s share of second and third places. Lately, this stranglehold has been broken somewhat by Zenit St Petersburg and Rubin Kazan. However, this season two teams from the North Caucasus – the scene of wars and insurgency for much of the last two decades – aim to upstage them all.

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Brazil Serie A 1991

Robert Shaw looks back at a Sao Paulo team filled with future Brazilian World Cup winners who won their third league title

The long-term significance A landmark season for Sao Paulo and coach Tele Santana, 1991 would prove a false dawn in the reform of Brazil's domestic football. The squad that Tele built featured 11 players including Cafu, Leonardo and Rai who would play international football. Championship success in 1991 established the platform for Sao Paulo's Libertadores and World Club titles in 1992 and 1993. The 20 clubs played each other once: play- offs between the top four followed, meaning the 1991 Serie A was the simplest format since the establishment of the competition 20 years previously.

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History lessons

Brazil is suddenly keen on its football heritage – but with the emphasis on the Ricardo Teixeira years Robert Shaw reports

“The Maracaña has to be blown up. It is impossible to remake it, or even to adapt it to host a World Cup.” “This venue is simply fantastic for the history of Brazilian football.” Spot the difference. In 2004, Ricardo Teixeira president of the Brazilian football federation (CBF) was talking down his country’s most famous stadium as well as the game’s history before 1994, but by this September Teixeira could barely contain his enthusiasm for the past at the inauguration of São ­Paulo’s Museu do Futebol. Teixeira now expects a revamped Maracaña to host the 2014 World Cup final.

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World Cup 2006 TV diary – Group stages

Friday June 9
Possibly because Barry Davies, the last man who could take these things seriously, is missing, the BBC only show highlights of the opening ceremony. It includes lots of men in lederhosen, some ringing large cowbells attached to the waistbands of their shorts in a vigorous and vaguely pornographic manner. There’s a parade of former World Cup-winning stars, including what Jonathan Pearce describes as “The legend that is Italy”. “Ricky Villa – still tall,” gurgles Pearce later. Pelé arrives with the trophy, but brandishes it like he’s just won it, followed by Claudia Schiffer with Sepp Blatter in tow, sporting luxuriant sideburns that give him the look of Ben Cartwright from Bonanza.

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Weight of expectations

Brazil travelled to Germany as favourites, but Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and friends rarely looked worth the hype. As Robert Shaw explains, they paid the price for putting commercial concerns ahead of football

Carlos Alberto Parreira is an articulate coach, accustomed to giving presentations. But when it really mattered at the World Cup he was strangely speechless. After Thierry Henry slipped past a sleeping defence, Parreira seemed dumbstruck and delayed shuffling his pack, with Robinho left on the bench until it was too late. Brazil’s formation based on an attacking quartet was set in stone, although the notoriously cautious coach had only really seen it work well against Argentina in the Confederations Cup final last June and in the drubbing of Chile in September.

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