Belgium's surprising performance against Brazil

Led to Scolari subbing Juninho, who'd done absolutely nothing wrong, and deploying Kleberson as a second holding midfielder alongside Gilberto. They never looked back after that - all the guff about Brazil "playing with ten attackers" is and has always been guff - but incomprehensibly, pundits failed to notice their immediate improvement and comfortable 2-0 win, and thought an England side featuring Danny Mills, Trevor Sinclair, Emile Heskey and the admittedly magnificent Nicky Butt would beat them, on another continent, in impossible heat and humidity!

That was the one tournament I had no problem with Eriksson over. Considering he took over when we were in deep s**t, beat Germany and Argentina, and got to the last 8 on another continent after the hardest group stage draw we've ever been faced with, I couldn't believe the stick he got after we were knocked out. Mind you, the 2002 World Cup: ugh. The knockout stages were the worst in history - even worse than Italia 90! - and I was reading a piece earlier by someone convinced that it was the most corrupt tournament ever. Korea-Italy, possible fix; Korea-Spain, definite and shameless fix; Brazil's draw made as comfortable as possible, their great rivals landed in a horrendously difficult group, Italy suffering weird refereeing decisions throughout... it does make you wonder.

I also happened upon a wonderful Argentine website which depicts our win in '66, and specifically, our defeat of them in the quarters, as the 'Robbery of the Century'. Even with my very limited Spanish, I could make out the grounds for such a theory. It was actually that game, much more than the Falklands, that most Argentines saw 1986 as revenge for.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Jun 17, 16:04:19