As the world knows, France, the landlord, swept Brazil 3-0 in the game of the century to win the Gold Cup. However, this battle has also gone down in history as one of the greatest
fig. a complete unknown who wins a competition
To this day, it remains an unsolved mystery - what exactly happened to Ronaldo at the time?
There are many different opinions about the outcome of this battle. The most dominant stories are that Brazil is suspected of match-fixing, or that Ronaldo suffered a seizure during the match, and there are even rumors that he was drugged to the point that he was in a state of total disrepair.
I've done an in-depth review of the game, analyzing just the game itself to try and unravel the mystery of Brazil's loss.
(Full game video)
First of all, I would like to point out that this match was essentially a contest between classical and modern soccer. At that time, the performance and tactical layout of the Brazilian team were hailed as a model of modern soccer, and their attacking soccer and 442 diamond formation were considered the future direction of soccer. However, today, 20 years later, we look back and realize that Brazil's soccer at that time was only a transitional stage in the evolution of soccer.
In contrast, France's soccer is closer to the post-21st century style of soccer.
There is a significant gap between the two teams: Brazilian soccer seems to be a full-fledged attack, but in fact the players are fixed in their positions, and apart from the occasional participation of the two wing-backs Cafu and Carlos in the attack, most of the other players are only doing their own positional work, and are not very familiar with other positions.
France, on the other hand, were the opposite, with their debutants taking on two roles in the game and moving almost exclusively in two zones, implying a high degree of teamwork. By constantly moving and switching positions, they created a dense defense that effectively countered Brazil's strong individual capabilities and ultimately won the game.
In what was the biggest battle in Brazil's history
fig. a complete unknown who wins a competition
In the middle, Ronaldo became a target.
Even though the French team was excellent in tactics and all aspects of the game, it was still difficult to fight against the Brazilian team of the time, and behind this was a gap in strength. Some people claimed that Ronaldo was drugged to cause his powerlessness, which is a bit biased. Ronaldo's performance in that game was indeed unsatisfactory, some say it was because he was unwell but insisted on playing, others say it was because the coach insisted on letting him play, but in any case, he had to play.
Ronaldo was so good that he caught the world's attention, and after the eventual loss, everyone focused on Ronaldo and ignored the fact that the Brazilian team was abysmal in that game.
If Ronaldo was drugged, I think the whole Brazilian team may have been drugged.
France started the game with a strikerless formation, with striker Guivarc`h pulling to the wing to hold R. Carlos, Zidane and Djorkaeff as attacking midfielders constantly dropping back to make tackles, fullbacks Leboeuf and Desailly wrapping up Dairo front and back and on the other side of the field, Karembu with Deschamps and even plus striker On the other side, Karembu and Deschamps and even striker Guivarc`h surrounded Rivaldo, the centerpiece of Brazil's transmission.
This destructive tactic was borrowed from Holland's performance against Brazil, and focused on disrupting Rivaldo, reducing the number of passes Bigelow made, and then everyone crowding into the center of the field. This distance was an important space for Bigelow to accelerate, but with support passes drastically reduced and no space when he got the ball, Bigelow's form was strangely poor and his role gone.
This was a situation where the Brazilian midfielders were supposed to come forward to help, but Leonardo and Sampaio, while controlling the area behind Rivaldo, are the type of players who are better passers than tacklers. As Brazil favors offense, there are no defensive engineers. The only worker, Dunga, is old, and Leonardo and Sampaio's function is to pass the ball freely to Rivaldo, but with France running into the midfield with nearly seven men, there are virtually no passing lanes in this area.
The only way to use this situation is to use hard tackles, and then hard split sides to rush in from the sides or pass ground balls to grab the point, but on the other hand, Brazil did not bring enough workhorse midfielders (94 Brazil was a double defensive back with strong tackles), and it became very difficult to get the ball back in the midfield, and there was no way to pass the ball.
France gave up all positional work just to disrupt the Brazilian organization in the midfield, which of course left them with nothing to do offensively, but it would have been impossible to stop the Brazilian attack without doing so. France made up their minds to play a stalemate, and it wasn't until they scored from a corner kick that it became apparent that their only hope rested on the set piece play, for which they had done a great deal of designing.
