Ronaldo squares the rocky cycle for Brazil

Ronaldo 67 79

Nothing became the 2002 World Cup so much as its ending. A tournament full of the unexpected was won by the team that ultimately most people fancied and in a way that practically everybody wanted.

Brazil are world champions for a fifth time because, having improved with each game once they reached the knock-out stage, they saved the best till last. And they needed it.

Germany's fast, physical challenge was laced with sufficient quality to make fresh demands of Luiz Felipe Scolari and Brazil's response to the challenge produced the best World Cup final since the West Germans lost 3-2 to Argentina in Mexico City in 1986. It seems to be Germany's lot to be better remembered for the way they lose World Cup finals rather than win them.

Naturally the bulk of the attention at the final whistle was drawn to Ronaldo, who scored both the Brazilian goals to complete a comeback that in the world of fiction would have been rejected as too corny a tale to be feasible. Yet there it was: four years after he had wandered about the Stade de France in a trance as Brazil lost the previous final 3-0 to the hosts, the George Formby grin was back on Ronaldo's face as if he had never stopped cleaning windows.

Meanwhile a forlorn figure leant against a goalpost long after the finish. If Oliver Kahn was waiting for a certain little lady to pass by and tell him it had never happened, then he was waiting in vain.

Though Ronaldo undoubtedly won the game, the night was more a tale of two goalkeepers: Marcos, whose saves were as important to Brazil as their reborn striker's finishing, and Kahn, who chose the biggest occasion to make his first mistake, after which Brazil took a lead they were never likely to lose.

Some of Brazil's triumphs have been achieved in spite of their goalkeepers rather than because of them. Yet, just as Marcos had done much to keep them in the tournament against Belgium in the second round, so his quick reflexes twice denied Germany the lead at the start of the second half.

First Jens Jeremies had a sharp diving header blocked at the near post, then Oliver Neuville saw his 30-yard free-kick touched on to the opposite post by the Brazilian goalkeeper. Late in the game Marcos denied Oliver Bierhoff - who had come on for the disappointing Miroslav Klose - a goal in similarly agile fashion, although by then the outcome was virtually beyond doubt.

If this latest success was hardly in the class of their World Cup triumphs of 1958, 1962 and 1970 it still deserves its place in the pantheon of Brazilian achievement on the football field. Scolari inherited a squad dispirited by what had happened in 1998, by frequent changes of coach and by the assumption that Ronaldo would not return, at least not in time for this World Cup.

For Brazil's voluble, arm-waving coach the most rewarding aspect of yesterday's performance was surely the way the team combined to take on the Germans at their own game of solid defending followed by penetrating counter-attacks and ultimately did it better.

Carsten Ramelow was outstanding at the heart of Rudi Völler's defence but he was upstaged by Edmilson who, despite an aching knee, did more than anyone to deny Germany chances from the centres, corners and free-kicks that had done so much to bring them this far.

Völler's tactic was to get his midfield, and in particular Dietmar Hamann, tight on Kleberson and Gilberto Silva and by so doing isolate Ronaldinho and Rivaldo.

For a time it worked. Brazil's most creative players were cut off from their source and Bernd Schneider, Germany's best hope of inspiration in the absence of the suspended Michael Ballack, looked capable of running the match.

For the Germans almost everything was about running. Neuville and Torsten Frings consistently pressed back Roberto Carlos and Cafu on the flanks, the first-time passing was slick and, with more composure up front, Brazil might have been forced on to the back foot.

Yet, for all Germany's pressure in the first half, they might have ended it three goals down.

When Ronaldinho did find space he set up two chances for Ronaldo - one flicked wide, one saved - and pro vided the pass from which Kleberson struck the bar. On the stroke of half-time Ronaldo turned slickly on to a low cross from Roberto Carlos and Kahn's save kept Germany alive.

Kahn then somehow kept out a lofty point-blank header from Gilberto Silva and an absorbing match remained in the balance - but only until the 67th minute, when a combination of Ronaldo's doggedness and a howler by Kahn swung it Brazil's way.

Hamann neatly dispossessed the advancing Ronaldo only to dwell on the ball and have it muscled off him by the Brazilian striker. Ronaldo's pass set up Rivaldo, whose left-footed shot was of a sort Kahn would normally have caught in his sleep. Indeed this one did catch him napping; he spilled the ball and Ronaldo's sharp follow-up did the rest.

Twelve minutes later Rivaldo dummied over Kleberson's low ball from the right and Ronaldo drove a low shot past Kahn in his old carefree manner. Seldom has a footballer looked more free of care than Ronaldo did when it was all over.

Presumably the Emperor of Japan was suitably impressed. Brazil's object had been all sublime and Germany's defeat was widely regarded as a source of innocent merriment. It was not a bad way for Japan to start the rainy season.

Brazil (3-4-2-1): Marcos; Lucio, Roque Junior, Edmilson; Cafu, Kleberson, Gilberto Silva, Roberto Carlos; Rivaldo, Ronaldinho (Juninho, 84); Ronaldo (Denilson, 89).

Booked: Roque Junior.

Germany (3-5-2): Kahn; Linke, Ramelow, Metzelder; Frings, Schneider, Hamann, Jeremies (Asamoah, 76), Bode (Ziege, 83); Neuville, Klose (Bierhoff, 73).

Booked: Klose.

Referee: P Collina (Italy).

Man of the match: Ronaldo.