Seen in the picture is Pele - a 17 year kid playing for Brazil in 1958 World Cup.
The third footballer who is expected to create ripples in this World Cup will be England's Rooney who is compared with Kevin Keegan. I disagree here too because after his retirement from first class soccer, British soccer is yet to produce another Keegan who was great all round footballer, great shooter, great runner and great cool tempered on the field while Rooney lacks all these attributes to become another Keegan though Rooney is good footballer shining only on British soccer arena.
Seen in the picture is final match of the inaugural tournament in 1930 at Uruguay.
Kaka of Brazil is another footballer to create a name and fame for him in this World Cup tournament and according to soccer pundits he will emulate the feat of Pele. Let me be clear now that there is no one on this planet to emulate Pele and will not be too, either, easily. Persons like Pele comes to this planet only once in centuries. Pele is Pele. After 1966 World Cup everyone equated Portugal's Eusebio with Pele but Eusebio himself in his autobiography written in Portuguese “Meu Nome e Eusebio” confessed that “Pele is Pele, he is great, I cannot emulate him even though Pele himself has said that I am now Pele”. Kaka is a great ball player but in front of Pele he is like a tip of an iceberg. Why in front of Pele only? Kaka is much lower in his standard than many of the former great players of Brazil.
According to me, in the current Brazil team there is not a single individual player whom I can really rate as ‘titanic footballer’ who will change the tide in favour of his team. This time Brazil will rely on team work where individual skill will not come to the fore. And if Brazil wins the Cup in South Africa it will be only because of collective team work and if they lose it will be only because of absence in their team of individual star players normally Brazil is known to field. To win the Championship you also need to have a Star player in your team. Currently there are no great star players in any of the qualified teams. Earlier Brasil alone was having in its squad not only one star but a constellation which helped Brazil to win the World Cups 5 times with confidence
Seen in the picture above is one of the top French players Platini.
Inspite of what I said above, who then will be the players who will steal the limelight during this World Cup? Will he be Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo or Rooney or somebody else? And who will then win this World Cup tournament in South Africa? Time alone will give the testimony to these questions. Till then, all the best to all the 32 teams.
Before concluding let us all as lovers of soccer pray sincerely to God to keep away all the terrorists from creating any act of terrorism during the entire period of World Cup. Let us pray to God to avoid another Munich Olympic type of disaster created by the Palestinian terrorists. First time hosting of World Cup in African continent is a big honour for the Black Africa and to get this honour Nelson Mandela personally worked very hard. May God Bless and protect all from any disaster during the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Let us all lovers of soccer consider this World Cup is not only of FIFA and South Africa but also of all of us.
CONCLUDED.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
