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England's timely chance to measure up against Brazil yardstick

There is never a bad time to play the Brazilians, even for an England team savaged by injuries
bobby moore
Brazil's captain Carlos Alberto, left, and his English opposite number, Booby Moore, before the 1970 World Cup meeting at Guadalajara. Photograph: AP

There is never a bad time to play Brazil, even with a team weakened by injuries. Sir Alex Ferguson might dismiss this evening's friendly in Doha as a junket for the Football Association's blazers but for Fabio Capello and his England squad it is a priceless opportunity to acquaint themselves with what they may be required to do to win the World Cup next year.

Kaká, Brazil's best player, believes an English triumph is possible. He may also have similar feelings about Spain, Holland, Germany and Italy but clearly he was being more than just polite when he declared this week that under Capello England have achieved a "better collective awareness ... with regard to movements and positioning", along with a stronger attitude.

So what better than a friendly against Brazil to put these improvements to the test? After all, any team with serious thoughts about winning the World Cup knows that in order to do so, or at least reach the final, it will probably have to meet and beat Brazil at some point. England also know that, so far, their record against Brazil has been pretty wretched.

In the World Cup the countries have met four times and on three occasions Brazil have won, the exception being a scoreless draw in Gothenburg during the 1958 tournament, when England managed to smother a Brazilian attack that lacked Pele and Garrincha. Brazil knocked out Walter Winterbottom's side in the 1962 quarter-finals and Sven-Goran Eriksson's England lost to Luiz Felipe Scolari's team at the same stage in 2002. The other encounter, a group game in Guadalajara during the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, saw Sir Alf Ramsey's players produce what is still the best performance by an England side in a major competition, even though they lost.

This was the one occasion on which England have faced Brazil if not as equals (no team in 1970 possessed the equals of Pele, Tostao and Jairzinho) then as a side with comparable World Cup-winning potential.

Ramsey's team, an improvement on 1966 in terms of attacking options though less reliable defensively, matched the greatest side the World Cup has ever seen move for move until Tostao nutmegged Bobby Moore and found Pele, who set up Jairzinho for the game's only goal.

When Moore and Pele exchanged shirts at the end it was widely assumed that they would be meeting again in the final but West Germany put paid to that prognostication when they eliminated England in the quarter-finals, which have come to be regarded as the graveyard of English ambitions.

England returned from Mexico in 1970 to find the nation's football followers in thrall to the brilliance of Brazil in general and Pele in particular. "England," Ramsey declared Alfishly, "have nothing to learn from the Brazilians." He was promptly condemned for an apparently blinkered insularity when what he probably meant was that since Brazil were in a class apart, England would be better off doing their own thing.

Yet there were certain things that England could have taken on board and that still hold true today. These concerned the thoroughness with which the Brazilians prepared for a competition, a schedule that so impressed Fifa that the world body reprinted it in its official report on the 1970 tournament.

Training consisted of two two-hour sessions each day, ball work in the morning "as the nervous system will be duly rested after a night's sleep" and the physical stuff in the afternoon "when the system has been more nourished".

Because there was a four-hour time lag the Brazil players' meal times and bed times were gradually retarded until the difference had been overcome. Psychological preparation was considered as important as technical and tactical preparation. And all this predated Arsène Wenger by nearly three decades.

Capello may not be taking the best England team to a World Cup, but if he has his way they will be the best prepared. Brazil may have less to teach England now about how to approach a tournament, but a Brazilian coach will still have more time with his players in the run-up even if they have been scattered to the four winds.

That is a lesson still to be learned and one that needs to be drummed into the heads of those who query the value of a friendly against quality opposition when Capello has only one other game lined up before he names his squad for South Africa.

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