By Damian Spellman, PA Sport

England invented it; Uruguay, Hungary and West Germany in turn took it by the scruff of the neck, but Brazil were crowned the undisputed kings of football on Sunday.

Their 2-0 World Cup final victory over Germany handed the South Americans the title for the fifth time in 44 years as they returned to the top of the pile they vacated temporarily four years ago in France.

The Brazilians have now appeared in no fewer than seven of the 17 finals - including each of the last three - since the tournament was first staged in 1930, and have had near-misses in between as perhaps more gifted sides than the one which triumphed in Yokohama have failed to fulfil their potential.

That record makes England's solitary victory in 1966 - fought out, as any self-respecting Scotsman will remind you, on home soil - pale into relative insignificance.

However, the fact remains that, aside from Brazil and England, only five other countries - Italy and West Germany three times, Uruguay and Argentina twice and and France once - have ever lifted the trophy.

England have had their close scrapes in years gone by; the heartbreaking 3-2 defeat by Germany after leading 2-0 in the quarter-final in 1970, Diego Maradona's Jekyll and Hyde intervention 16 years later and the semi-final penalty shoot-out defeat by the Germans at Italia 90 all remain as scars on the national psyche.

But despite the best efforts of their closest competitors, Brazil are comfortably the most successful side in world football, and the reasons are not difficult to see.

Generation upon generation, they have turned out legions of supremely talented footballers, comfortable in possession, precocious and with a genuine hunger for the game.

The names trip off the tongue - Pele, Garrincha, Jairzinho, Zico, Socrates, Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho to name but a few.

However, God-given talent alone is not the complete recipe for success.

Football remains a national obsession in Brazil in a way that it once was in England.

Remember the days when every patch of open ground, every back street, was the venue for a game, jumpers for goalposts, a balding tennis ball in an emergency and as many a side as you could muster?

After all, isn't that where the likes of the Charlton brothers found their feet, and they didn't do too badly out of it.

That is still the case in Brazil, but try finding a group of youngsters at home playing out their fantasies without the help of a full David Beckham replica kit and £70 boots.

The South Americans, of course, have a huge population from which to produce their footballers, some 173 million as opposed to around 49 million in England, but mathematics alone cannot explain their continuing success.

Their footballing culture has been both their immense strength and downfall over the years; they like players to get on the ball and enjoy it, and that extends to defenders who have never been taught the first maxim of defence - the opposition cannot score if the ball is in the car park.

That is not the English way. Wingers should run with the ball, strikers score goals and central defenders only cross the halfway line for attacking corners.

It is not a bad system, and it was that pragmatism which laid the foundation for England's famous victory over Argentina on June 7.

But that rigidity contrasts sharply with the fluidity which makes the Brazilians so thrilling to watch.

In addition, most of Brazil's big names play their football in Europe, coming up against the best in the world week-in, week-out in the Italian and Spanish leagues and in Champions League football.

Of Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad, only Bayern Munich's Owen Hargreaves plays his football outside England, while fewer than half experienced the Champions League last season, and despite the growing number of international stars in the Premiership, there remains a gap to the continent's best.

England have several world-class performers - Rio Ferdinand and Nicky Butt have joined a relatively short list headed by David Beckham, Michael Owen and Paul Scholes in the last few weeks - but Brazil simply have more.

When Steven Gerrard and Gary Neville pulled out of the squad through injury and Beckham and Kieron Dyer were struggling for fitness, Eriksson's options were severely limited; Luiz Filipe Scolari was able to leave Romario at home and dispense with the services of Juninho in favour of Kleberson when he needed to tinker.

In essence, what has made Brazil so good over the last half a century is that they have produced excellent players and moulded them to teams which play incisive football, especially on the big occasion.

But their success is perhaps as much due to their passion for a game which has brought so much joy to both their compatriots and the rest of the world and which suggests that they will remain the dominant force for some time to come.

Back to top