As with Ronaldo, though, it's about Brazil not living up to expectations.

It is a phenomenal group of attacking players they have, with formidable reputations, and none of them have looked particularly impressive so far. Ronaldo looks for the most part (and particularly against Croatia) like a man who's won a competition to play in the World Cup, but what people have been brought to expect from the current Brazil team is the kind of dynamic, free-flowing football that Spain and Argentina produced.

They're still going to have a very big say in who wins the World Cup, but people were expecting them to really dominate the tournament, and so far they've looked pretty pedestrian against fairly mediocre opposition. Yes, they are "doing enough to win" but at the moment it really doesn't look like what they are doing will flower into football that allows them to beat Argentina, Spain or Holland, for example.

I could well be wrong on that, though - the quality is definitely there, but the cohesion and excitement (at the moment) really isn't, and that's why people are so disappointed with Brazil, really, and sick of idiots commentators getting over-excited about them just *because* they're Brazil.

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot on June 18th 2006 at 19:35:33

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