Mumbai: On a stage at a college atrium, Cafu soaked in the adulation. Students, brandishing any Brazilian jersey they could find – from the present selection with ‘Neymar Jr’ printed on the back to quite a few with ‘Ronaldo’ – cheered him on. Cafu beckoned a few to toss their shirts forward for him to sign and send back.
He belongs to an era (more 2002 than 1994) that fans, particularly of Brazil, still revere for their free-flowing, crowd-pleasing game. The wait for another world title has now extended, as the Brazilian team crashed out in the Round of 16 of the World Cup in July, marking their earliest exit at the competition since the 1990 edition. Cafu explained that the team that reached the final in 1994 had most of players competing for clubs within the country, while the 2002 team, including Cafu himself (he played for Roma in Italy at the time) had moved to European clubs. It is a match that will be played between the five-time world champions, ranked No.5 in the world, and a team currently on 138 in the FIFA rankings.
It is a new generation, they are new players, and we have to root hard so that this new era and these new players can achieve what we achieved: reaching a World Cup final. “You cannot compare it to the era when we played. That era has passed. “The World Cup is not an exact science. The best do not always win, and the champion is not always the best team. It is a sequence of factors that makes you win a World Cup. But I am very hopeful when talking about the Brazilian national team. The globalisation of the sport is perhaps one reason for the drop in Brazil’s performances on the global stage. In October, they will be travelling to India to play a friendly in Kolkata.
“Brazil has been going through a difficult period when it comes to the national team, because now the wait will go on to 28 years without winning a World Cup,” he told the media at Pillai University in Navi Mumbai. “I hope it will be a great game and will benefit the Indian team, which will face a five-time world champion.”
