Brazil are gunning for their fifth World Cup title

By Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer, Tokyo

If there is any justice in football then Cafu will lift the World Cup to the Yokohama skyline on Sunday night and Brazil will be acclaimed as undisputed champions for the fifth time.

It is the only correct conclusion to this most bizarre of tournaments in which black has become white, night has become day and France seemingly have gone from the best team in the world to one of the worst in the twinkling of Papa Bouba Diop's opening goal celebration.

If football was fundamentally about structure, timing, method and sheer meticulous organisation then there would be merit in heralding Germany as the rightful owners of its most prestigious prize.

But no-one, apart from the most tactically pedantic of footballing coaches, surely believes that.

Football, for all it has been hijacked by big business, plcs and shareholders, is about fun, excitement, thrilling goals and wondrous deeds.

It is about Pele and Rivelino, the magic of Maradona and Muller, the charisma of Kempes and Cruyff.

Yes, we can respect the outstanding talent of Germany's Oliver Kahn, by a distance the most accomplished goalkeeper at this tournament.

We can admire the industry of midfielders Carsten Ramelow and Dietmar Hamann and the power and strength in the air of Miroslav Klose and Oliver Neuville.

But when the world's greatest competition comes down to its final act we demand that the likes of Rivaldo and Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Roberto Carlos coat it in its most vivid hue.

Let's face it, already the yellow shirts of Brazil have saved this tournament from going down as perhaps the most technically deficient of all time.

The early fall of France, Argentina and Italy brought much talk of a new world order and the burgeoning force of Africa and Asia.

There was a certain romance in the deeds of Senegal, a genuine wonder surrounding South Korea, a sense of adventure about the stirring performance of the United States and the Republic of Ireland come to that.

But the overriding feeling was also of a tournament without outstanding players, lacking a great team around which to focus affection.

Cometh the hour, cometh the team. And if that team just so happens to be one made up of brilliant individuals, rather than a balanced whole, then their achievement thus far is no less commendable for that.

The final is given extra intrigue, of course, by the timely resurgence of Ronaldo, whose goal against Turkey in the semi-final took him to six for the tournament, one ahead of team-mate Rivaldo and Germany's Klose in the race for the Golden Boot.

The wonder of Ronaldo, however, is not in his goals but in the mere fact that he is here, four years after the trauma of France 98 when he suffered a seizure before the final and wandered around in a daze for 90 minutes.

This time he is far from match fit after playing only 13 games for Inter Milan in a season punctuated by muscle injuries, themselves on top of a two-year rehabilitation from an operation to reconstruct a knee.

His running gait betrays his pain - more of a shuffle than the darting, galloping thoroughbred of old. But the magic remains, encapsulated in that shimmying, gliding cameo of trickery to evade four Turkish defenders and slide the ball home for the goal which eased Brazil into the final.

"Every goal I score is a victory," was Ronaldo's verdict.

"Every time I enter the pitch it is a joy. I can say that the nightmare is over. Now I am going to the final to get even happier with my work."

And his face lit up with that familiar buck-toothed smile.

It is no coincidence that the rebirth of Ronaldo has dovetailed neatly with the re-emergence of Brazil after a qualifying period which saw them lose six out of 18 matches and flirt with missing the finals for the first time.

But much credit also must go to coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Gene Hackman lookalike whose abrasive, temperamental style once saw him offer to settle his differences with a referee in the car park.

He also has a penchant for punching reporters. Ironically, however, for a man renowned for his defensive instincts, he has indulged attacking flair during his one-year reign with the national team, more out of necessity than choice.

He simply hasn't had time to drill structure in a team whose greatest asset is playing off the cuff.

It is therefore a collision of contrasting fates which brings Brazil, four-times winners, and Germany, with three triumphs, to their first-ever World Cup encounter.

Neither team can claim to rival the talents of their most illustrious forebears. Nor have they.

On the day the difference might well be centred in the return of the bustling Ronaldinho for Brazil and the cruel suspension of Michael Ballack, the one German with a modicum of enterprise.

The Germans have ridden their fortune and rediscovered much pride and passion since they were humbled 5-1 in Munich by England back in September.

But Sunday is a day for justice and the hope and prayer is that it will be Brazil and Scolari who prevail.

"My duty is to win," says Scolari. "We do not have a second-place culture in our country. My own son even said to me recently: 'Second place is just the first of the last places'."

At this World Cup Brazil deserve to be first.