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WORLD CUP 2006
Adriano - His World Cup
Adriano stared the tournament tipped as one of the players to shine, one. His role in the ‘Magic Quartet’ was to finish the moves, simple as that.
The Brazilians crashed out against a lack-lustre French team, who won on work-ethic rather than fluency of play, whilst the Brazilian football machine never really got going.
They said the ‘Brazilian Magic Machine’ was made by the PR man, and not the players, but the fans were left expecting that much more from an extremely talented team that failed to really get together as a team.
Their first performance against Croatia was laboured, with Adriano failing to make much of an impression, and Brazil lucky to win 1-0.
Against Australia the Brazilians started to samba, but at the same time never really looked utterly convincing. Adriano’s well taken goal in the 49th minute put paid to any dreams of an upset, but still, the balance in the team didn’t seem right. The defenders were doing their roles – conceding very few all tournament – but the attackers failed to do theirs.
Against Japan, Adriano was rested for his perceived profligacy in front of goal – though on closer inspection we can see that Adriano actually had just 5 shots all World Cup – not enough for a genuine Golden Boot contender.
Brazil finally turned the heat up after going 1 behind to Japan. Would this be the start of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, and co? In truth, no.
An easy Second round match against Ghana saw them have their free passage to the Quarters. Adriano and Ronaldo were at least looking aware and alert against the Africans, and were responsible for the Brazil goal tally of 3 – though this rather flattered the South Americans.
Adriano’s second of the Finals came courtesy of a Cafu break down the right. Adriano appeared offside, but the referee allowed play to go on as he bundled the ball over the line from 3 yards.
The Magic Quartet were separated again against France, and where there had once been invention and genius from Ronaldo, Kaka, Adriano and Ronaldinho, they had nothing. Not even a step-over!
Sloppy defending ultimately cost the Brazilians, as Henry stole in unmarked at the back-post, but it was the Brazilian’s failure to get fired up upfront that cost them.
Adriano has so much potential and should have shown this on the World Stage. Instead he was eclipsed by his strike-partner, Ronaldo, and didn’t sparkle.
