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Football’s Flamboyant Maestro
by Jethro Soutar
Robson, £9.99
Reviewed by Barney Ronay
From WSC 242 April 2007 

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“The importance of Ronaldinho’s aura, his grace and charisma, cannot be overstated,” writes Jethro Soutar halfway through this meticulous 90,000-word exercise in doing just that. Immaculately put together and perkily written, the only thing the book lacks is any kind of analysis of its subject to go alongside all the facts. Surprisingly, given its unofficial nature, there’s no room here for Ronaldinho as anything but permanently smiling super athlete, a sporting brand defined by his umbilical, and highly marketable, link to the common myth-kitty of Brazilian football greatness. This is a shame because, as far as it goes, this is an energetic and comprehensive biography.

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Wednesday 1 A David Bellion goal after 18 seconds is enough for Man Utd reserves to beat their counterparts from Arsenal in the Carling Cup. Liverpool also put out a shadow side, but still knock out Spurs on penalties after a 1-1 draw nicked through a Fredi Kanouté handball (“unforgivable” says Martin Jol) four minutes from the end of extra time.X

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Brazil are in turmoil, Peru are in despair, and Chile are in the pool with a load of Colombian women. It's never dull in South America, as Leopoldo Iturra discovers

Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his use of magic realism, a style which deliberately exaggerates Latin American folk­lore and which allows anything to happen – from the appearance of Romanies who invent snow to immortal incestuous families.

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Some of WSC's regular contributors give their views on 1999 and their hopes for football in the new millennium

Harry Pearson
Ups
The return of Juninho.
Des Lynam’s move to ITV. The adverts mean we get less of his banter.
Alan Shearer’s public persona. A comedic tour de force combining the best of Victor Meldrew and Harry Enfield’s teenager. Every time I see his face I just crease up.

Downs
Paul Gas­coigne’s appearance as a sub v Chelsea. Sad and ­irritating in equal measure. And that was just his hairstyle. Continued ranting about foreign players and the pernicious effect their presence is having on our national team. As if England have never been useless before now. The media’s barrel-scraping attempts to fill hours of airtime and acres of newsprint with England v Scotland build-up. Sending a reporter to Hampden Park, Eastbourne.

Hope for 2000
Someone high up at the FA to slap his forehead one morning and say, “I’ve got it! Why don’t we stop the Premiership wages spiral by putting a cap on admission prices!”

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Even with Ronaldo in one of his funny moods, Brazil rarely needed to break sweat to retain their South American title in Paraguay as Sam Wallace reports

At either end of the Defensores Del Chacos ground in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, stood enormous models of Budweiser cans which, at set in­tervals, would start to gyrate. Occasionally, a plastic bag thrown from the crowd behind the goal would sail over the cans, jettisoning in flight its cargo of urine. The irony was hard to ignore. No amount of expensive advertising ever quite managed to sanitise a gloriously chaotic Copa America 1999.

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