League championships are a different matter. At the end of the season the table does not lie. The worst teams are at the bottom and the best ones are at the top - and in most major leagues the number of teams capable of making a genuine title challenge has fallen over recent years.

In the first full season I followed the English title was won by Derby County, who did it again three years later. There were still players around who had been active when the championship went to Ipswich and Burnley, unthinkable from today's perspective.

Before we start eulogising over the good old days, it is worth remembering that this competitive balance was underpinned by the treatment handed out to those who put on the show.

Neymar is among a host of young stars playing in the Brasileirao Serie A. Photo: Getty

Take such artificial restraints away and an inevitable process of concentration begins. Football is the game of the city. The big city giants can afford to pay more, so they attract the best players and a reduced number of clubs cut away from the pack. Make the area of operation worldwide and the number is reduced still further. There is space for a handful of giants to go global, first winning over fans in Asia and North America, and then working to find ways to turn this allegiance into money.

The super-size teams are thus able to assemble squads of dazzling quality, making it hard for the mid-size clubs to compete. The price of quality is a large dose of predictability, the big dilemma of today's top domestic leagues.

But there is one championship with the potential to come up with an interesting answer to the quality/predictability equation - Brazil, where the 2012 national league kicked off over the weekend.

A similar dynamic of predictability has been taking place in Brazil. A decade ago, for example, tiny Sao Caetano, existing on gates of around 2,000, spent a few seasons as title contenders. And Atletico Paranaense, from Curitiba - at best Brazilian football's fifth city - were champions in 2001. All of that is unlikely now.

For a start, the season is longer - in 2003 a fully fledged league system replaced the previous, shorter play-off format. The longer the competition the deeper the squad needed, making things harder for the smaller clubs. Also - fundamentally - there is more money around. The country has been experiencing a consumer-led boom and so clubs have been able to boost their revenues from TV and sponsorship.

More money means more quality, but because the former is not distributed equally nor is the latter. Gaps have opened up and it is now unthinkable that the Brazilian equivalents of Derby, Ipswich and Burnley can win the title.

Even so, the Brazilian championship is never likely to prove as predictable as the English or Spanish ones, for example. The sheer size of the country comes to its rescue. It is hard to imagine the title slipping out of the grasp of one of the giants from the traditional centres, but there are enough of them to keep things interesting.

Rio de Janeiro has four big clubs, Sao Paulo has four, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre each have two. Then there is the north-east of the country, where the mass support of the big teams has yet to translate itself into consistent strength on the field. Perhaps, though, 2014 World Cup investments will give the region a boost and the competition will benefit from the growth of more giant contenders.

The Brazilian championship, then, can combine quality with a healthy lack of predictability. But if it is to fulfil its massive potential, it must sort out its calendar.
The first round of any league should be a huge festival of football, the moment when fans flock to the stadiums eager to see their heroes in action. But the Brazilian Championship kicks off at the very time when the Copa Libertadores, the continent's Champions League, and the domestic cup are reaching the decisive stages.

Teams still involved in these competitions tend to pick reserve sides for the league games. There will be plenty of reserves in action later on as well. The fixture list goes straight through until early December, with no pause for Fifa dates or international competitions. The best players will miss a large chunk of the season away on duty with Brazil's Olympic team.

It is amazing that the clubs put up with such a situation. And even more incredible that they put up with a calendar that embarks on a long league season with no pause beforehand. For the last few months they have been engaged in the state championships, one for each of the 27 states that make up this giant country. Those clubs which did not win their state title are branded failures even before the leagues season starts. It was for this reason that the game I was at on Sunday, Botafogo against Sao Paulo, attracted fewer than 5,000 paying supporters.

The home side came from behind to win 4-2 in an excellent game, one that deserved a much bigger audience. The fact that it did not get one is a symbol of a league operating below its potential.

Send your questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:

Just wondering whether you think Universidad de Chile's manager Jorge Sampaoli will leave the club at the end of their Copa Libertadores run and, if so, where is he likely to end up? Is it possible we could eventually see him picked up by a European side? The way his team so confidently despatched of Deportivo Quito 6-0 in the last-16 second leg having lost the first game 4-1 was breathtaking to watch. Stewart Hogarth

His side have been breathtaking to watch over the last 12 months. La U are so good to watch because the team play with such dynamism. The man on the ball has five options to give a pass.

Will they win the Libertadores? I don't think they're as defensively solid as last year, and if they can't stop the counter-attack at source they can have problems. But if they do win it he'll surely want to be around for the World Club Cup. Long term, I'm sure he'll be thinking of Europe. Sampaoli is a Marcelo Bielsa-disciple and the success Bielsa has enjoyed at Bilboa will surely open up doors for Sampaoli on that side of the Atlantic.

Higuita amused us, Chilavert we praised. Dida almost joined the list but somehow came short, by what criteria, I don't know. What is your take about home-grown goalkeepers in South America and who would be some of your picks? Kenneth Kolo

I think you have left Dida a little bit short because he wasn't (at all) a character goalkeeper like the other two. But, occasional slip apart, he was safer, bigger and better in a more orthodox interpretation of the position.

His performances shed light on the fact that Brazil has become a fine producer of keepers. Huge credit must go to Taffarel, a pioneer in the sense that he was the first one to gain the confidence of an international audience. To play three World Cups with hardly an error is also a massive achievement, a real test of character.

Other favourites? Jose Francisco Cevallos made his mistakes, but his contribution is undeniable in the first Ecuadorian national team to play in a World Cup and the first club from the country to win the Libertadores.

Producing such a magnificent striker has already done wonders for Independiente's finances. The money they received for selling him to Spain was used to rebuild their entire stadium, the Estadio Libertadores de America - named after South America's equivalent of the Champions League, which they have won a record seven times.

The Copa Libertadores is not only close to the heart of Independiente, it is a huge deal in Argentina nationally.

Supporters in the country have made up special songs about the Libertadores, and the atmosphere in a big Buenos Aires ground during one of those matches is something every fan should experience.

Juan Roman Riquelme's (10) Boca Juniors beat Chile's Union Espanola to reach this year's Libertadores quarter-finals. Photo: Getty

The competition was first played in 1960 - and from 1963 until 1979 there was always a club from Argentina in the final. The country can still boast more wins than anyone else (22, compared to 15 from Brazil, eight from Uruguay and seven from the rest of the continent combined).

However, that domination has started to look very shaky recently.

Over the past 15 years, for example, only two Argentine clubs have reached the final - Estudiantes on one occasion and Boca Juniors on several. In that same time, Brazil has produced 10 different finalists.

Argentina's domination was surely helped by the undeniable fact that, in the past, Brazilian clubs gave the competition a lower priority. In 1966, for example, there was no Brazilian participation, a protest against the expansion from one team per country to two, and there were also boycotts on financial grounds in 1969 and 1970.

Nowadays, though, the competition is a top priority in Brazil as well. And bearing in mind the huge size of the country and the financial gap which has opened up between its clubs and the rest of the continent, it is only to be expected that Brazil has become the leading force in the Libertadores.

Though Santos won the title, last year was not a good one for the Brazilians, who had problems dealing with different tactical approaches. This year, though, normal service has been resumed.

The quarter-finals kick off this week, and Brazil provides four of the last eight, just as it did in 2009 and 2010.

But the decline of Argentine clubs is not only relative to Brazil - performance has also plummeted against everyone else.

River Plate's relegation is symptomatic of the financial and administrative problems faced by even the biggest clubs in the country. For the past three years (and in four of the last five) Argentina has only provided one of the Libertadores quarter-finalists - a bleak statistic given the country's record of success in the competition.

This year, though, there are two, and the pair are the best Argentine football has to offer.
There is Boca Juniors, with all their tradition, back in the competition after a two year absence, and Velez Sarsfield, perhaps the best run club in the country, who have made huge strides in recent years and were unlucky to be knocked out in last year's semi-final.

Both Boca and Velez are more solid and functional than inspirational - a point made all too emphatically by the dreary 0-0 draw they fought out on Sunday in the domestic championship.

This week, though, they are on the same side, both taking on Brazilian opposition in a veritable battle for the soul of the Libertadores. Velez host Santos in Thursday's home leg, while Boca are at home to Fluminense.

As soon as coach Julio Cesar Falcioni took over at the start of last year, Boca were guaranteed to be interesting. Falcioni does not have the habit of picking an old fashioned number 10, and at Boca Juan Roman Riquelme is king.

At first, the coach struggled to accommodate Riquelme plus two strikers and still retain defensive consistency. Things improved in the middle of the year when lumbering centre forward Martin Palermo retired.

Falcioni could then operate with two mobile strikers, and seek to bring one of them behind the line of the ball when possession was lost. He built a solid side, one permanently seeking to defend itself against the opposing counter-attack, and was rewarded with an excellent defensive record as Boca won the last domestic title.

But it has not all been plain sailing.

Dealing with Riquelme is seldom easy, and he was said to be especially unhappy with the quality of the team's play in their Libertadores debut, a dire 0-0 draw against Zamora of Venezuela. Rumours abounded that Falcioni had resigned.

Since then relations have been patched up. Boca have won their last six matches in the competition and last week Riquelme was at his elegant and incisive best against Union Espanola of Chile.

Then, as this week, Uruguayan striker Santiago Silva was absent injured - but that might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The Fluminense centre-backs would hope to deal with him - but Brazilian clubs can struggle against fast strikers down the flanks, exploiting the space left behind the attacking full backs, and it is here that Dario Cvitanich and Pablo Mouche will look to shine.

Boca would be ill-advised to go chasing the game because their defensive record is based on collective solidity. Should they over-commit, their lack of pace at the back will be exposed.

And much the same applies to Velez Sarsfield, whose priority against Santos must surely be to deny space to Neymar. Right-sided midfielder Augusto Fernandez has a big role to play helping out his defence, while at the other end Velez will hope that Juan Manuel Martinez, full of strong running and change-of-pace dribbling, can get behind the Santos right-back.

Neither Argentine side would be distraught to be held to a goalless draw. With the away goals rule in operation, there is a lot to be said for the home side in the first leg keeping a clean sheet - just ask Chelsea.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:

Q) I was just wondering if you could shed some light on Ganso's development? I was just curious due to the fact that a couple of years ago it was always Santos's stars Neymar and Ganso who were wanted by Europe's elite, but now all you hear about and see in the media is Neymar. Is he currently injured or just not playing maybe?
Shahib Uddin

A) Ganso was injured for a while, but he is playing well since his return. It is hard not to be overshadowed by Neymar, whose progress has been exceptional. Ganso, though, has bags of talent - a real, old fashioned, elegant number 10 with the vision to see the pass and the technique to play it.
I am a bit concerned, though, by the amount of premature praise he received from the Brazilian media - which is always difficult to deal with, especially at such a young age. Neymar seems to have dealt with all that. Ganso still gives some worrying signs. Last week, for example, he complained the reason for his disappointing performances with the national team were because he had not been given enough freedom. It is inevitable at this stage of his career, but his decision-making needs improvement. Too many times he is caught in possession in danger zones.

Q) How would you sum up Venezuela's footballing talents (on the whole and at a youth level)?
Michael Aridy

A) Their progress over the past two decades has been nothing short of amazing, but their domestic football has suffered from the process. Now young Venezuelans are on the radar, and being picked up by clubs in Europe and South America. The country invested heavily in stadiums for the 2007 Copa America and expanded the first division, and suddenly the quality has plummeted because of the exodus abroad. This year, for the third successive time, no Venezuelan club made it out of the group stages in the Libertadores. None of them won a game and Zamora could not even score a goal. It is a classic example of the difficulty of launching a league in today's globalised game.

One of the lasting images of the tournament is that of Yekini gripping the back of the net and then forcing his arms through the holes as he yelled out his thanks to the heavens. It was a beautiful moment because there was nothing contrived about it. It was a genuine, spontaneous show of deep emotion.

More cheesy but equally sincere was another famous goal celebration from that tournament - Bebeto scoring for Brazil in the quarter-final against Netherlands and then, joined by team-mates Mazinho and Romario, rocking an imaginary cradle. It was a tribute to newly born son Mateus, nearly 18 years later a promising player himself. As the proud father explained, the beauty of the celebration lay in the fact that it was entirely unplanned.

The same could certainly not be said of the thousands of imitations it spawned, and all the other little dances now found around the world in commemoration of the ball hitting the back of the net. These days planning new celebrations has become a cottage industry - one that has flourished in Brazil more than anywhere else.

It is not advice that all would approve of. Cesar Luis Menotti who managed Argentina to the 1978 World Cup, is horrified by such modern fads. A few years ago, he wrote: "Many players have forgotten genuine emotion. Now they do little dances, take their shirts off or climb up the stands in the act of a demagogue. It's all planned for the media. I feel that the sense of respect towards the opponent is being lost."

Rashidi Yekini scored Nigeria's first ever World Cup goal at USA 94. Photo: Getty

Pep Guardiola would surely agree. The outgoing Barcelona coach was not at all happy recently when two of his players, Daniel Alves and Thiago Alcantara, celebrated a goal against Rayo Vallecano with a few dance steps. That is simply not the way things are done at Guardiola's Barcelona. Club captain Carles Puyol quickly ran over to put a stop to the festivities, and the coach made a point of apologising to Rayo Vallecano in the post-match news conference.

The background of the perpetrators is surely significant. Daniel Alves is Brazilian, while Thiago Alcantara, though born in Italy and a Spanish international, is the son of a high profile Brazilian - Mazinho, who rocked that imaginary cradle alongside Bebeto.

Thiago quickly apologised for his dance steps. Daniel Alves, meanwhile, seemed nonplussed by the reaction. He did not appear to accept that he had committed any transgression - which is hardly surprising given the fact back home that such celebrations are not only tolerated but actively encouraged.

This might seem a minor incident of little import. The fact that Guardiola felt the need to apologise shows that it touches on values in the game that he sees as fundamental. It also reveals a certain proximity with the more philosophical school of Argentine coaches.

Menotti's old friend, Angel Cappa, was one of the coaches Guardiola consulted before stepping up to take charge of the Barcelona first team. Another was Marcelo Bielsa, the former Argentina coach now in charge of Athletic Bilbao.

If Guardiola is close to a strand of Argentine football though, he seems distant from the mainstream in Brazil. After his team brushed Santos aside in last December's World Club Cup final, Guardiola talked of the great football played by Brazilian clubs in the past. Delivered with elegance, it was still a barb. Guardiola's mentor Johan Cruyff is a frequent critic of contemporary Brazilian football. Where once they played like Barcelona, he recently said, they now favour the counter-attack like Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid.

Since Guardiola announced his resignation, some In the Brazilian media have drooled over the idea that he might be tempted across the Atlantic to take over the national team. It would seem highly unlikely, though it would certainly be fascinating.

Brazil's production line of talent continues to work overtime. But is very hard to find equivalents of Xavi and Iniesta, which is no coincidence. In football the idea comes first, and the Brazilian game has not been looking for little midfielders whose game is based upon possession of the ball. The closest I can think of is a former Barcelona player, Deco, who made his name abroad and ended up playing his international football for Portugal.

Hopefully, his example will rub off, showing Brazilian coaches and kids the value of the cerebral central midfielder. If others are inspired to follow his example that really would be something to celebrate - with dance steps and all.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. No space for questions on South American football this week, but send them to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com and I'll pick out a couple for next time.

Hopefully, his example will rub off, showing Brazilian coaches and kids the value of the cerebral central midfielder. If others are inspired to follow his example that really would be something to celebrate - with dance steps and all.
Comments on the piece in the space provided. No space for questions on South American football this week, but send them to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com and I'll pick out a couple for next time.

"I had a team-mate at Zaragoza who had spent four or five years in England and he told me all the things that I shouldn't do," he said to the Uruguayan press.

"'Don't dive in the area, trying to get a penalty, don't score a goal with your hand, don't try to cheat the ref, don't try to pressure him to give a yellow card to an opponent'. At that moment I wondered where I was going. I thought I was on my way to another planet! But I adapted."

Football might be a universal language, but we speak it with different accents - one of the reasons that bringing in a player from a different culture always contains elements of a gamble. Not only is he a human being who has to adapt to life in a new country, he may also have to change some aspects of his behaviour on the field - or face the consequences.

Suarez's talent has helped him through a baptism of fire in the Premier League. Photo: Getty

All of this has since been discovered by one of Poyet's compatriots. When Luis Suarez joined Liverpool I imagined that his attacking thrust and the range of his talent would make him a firm favourite with the club's fans.

I also suspected that his competitive nature and temperamental streak would mark him out as the type of player whom opposing supporters love to hate. I did not bargain on an international incident.

Suarez, of course, served an eight- game suspension for racially abusing Patrice Evra of Manchester United, and attempted to defend himself by pointing out that such behaviour was not considered unacceptable in Uruguayan football.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, it does not seem to have harmed the player's prestige at home.

Soon after February's infamous 'non-handshake' at Old Trafford, Nacional supporters turned their team's Copa Libertadores tie at home to Libertad of Paraguay into a pro-Luis Suarez rally. There were banners aplenty in praise of their old hero.

Nacional, of course, are the club where Suarez came through the youth ranks and made his name. It is only to be expected, then, that a bond will continue to exist between the player and the fans.

But the backing for Suarez has gone well beyond his old haunts. Uruguayan politicians queued up to express their indignation at his punishment. Even President Jose Mujica got in the act, the veteran left winger declaring his full support for Suarez and commenting that some people did not seem to realise that the young man at the centre of the scandal was a poor kid who had not studied to be a diplomat.

Back home, the hero status of Suarez is safe. To many of them the Evra incident is of little importance when weighed against the service the player has already given in the sky blue shirt of his nation. "Other countries have their history," goes the expression "while Uruguay has its football."

In South Africa two years ago Uruguay reached their first World Cup semi-final since 1970 - and only their second since going down in extra-time to the great Hungary side of 1954.

In Uruguay successive generations had only been able to hear tales of their country's footballing prowess from their grandparents - until South Africa when they could climb on the roller-coaster and enjoy it for themselves.

Since then Suarez has gone from strength to strength. In terms of national team football, no-one on earth was better than him in 2011.

He made an inspired start to the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, scoring five times in three games. And before that he was the outstanding player last July as Uruguay won the Copa America for a record 15th time, putting them ahead of hosts Argentina in the all-time winners list.

As they celebrated on the field, the Uruguayan players sang about being champions again, just as they were the first time - a reference to the triumph of their predecessors in the inaugural Copa, held in 1916.

It is this respect for footballing tradition that gives Saturday's FA Cup Final a certain allure in Uruguay. The idea of a domestic cup competition is not a strong one in South America; Brazil has had such a trophy for the last 20 years, Colombia started recently and Argentina's is in its debut campaign.

But well entrenched is the practice of a big game to decide the destiny of a title - many league championships end this way. Throw in the historical importance of the competition and the presence on the Wembley pitch of Suarez, fresh from a hat-trick against Norwich, and it is clear the FA Cup final will be closely followed in Uruguay.

Part of this is down to Poyet, now the Brighton manager. His time at Chelsea did much to raise awareness of English football in Uruguay and also important were his exploits on the road to the 2000 FA Cup win.

At a time when the Premier League was starting to build a global audience, Poyet made it clear to his compatriots that the English game also contained a historic cup competition with a tradition going all the way back to 1872.

And so well has Poyet adapted that 12 years later he is still giving the English game the benefit of his international experience. It is hard to imagine Suarez still being in the country 12 years from now - there has even been speculation that he could be on his way out in the near future.

But however long he stays, his time in England will certainly be remembered - for reasons both positive and negative. He will hope that his contribution to the 131st FA Cup final will be recalled with pride by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.

Send your questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:
In your opinion, where does Neymar stand in relation to the top young players in European football, the likes of Gotze, Hazard, Wilshere, Thiago, etc? Is he on a different level altogether or do we have to wait to see him in Europe before a true judgement can be made? Jack Lewis
I don't watch enough European football to make an informed comparison, but I can tell you that Neymar really is an extraordinary talent. His running with the ball at pace, his capacity to see situations, his ability to improvise at speed and in reduced spaces, his finishing - all of these are sheer class.

It is true that Brazilian football allows him to operate in something of a comfort zone - the defensive lines operate deep, so there is plenty of space on the field in which he can pick up possession, and he picks up free-kicks that he would not always get in Europe.

My view is that the time has now come for him to make the move - an opinion Ronaldo gave to Gary Lineker last week. If he follows Ronaldo's advice you'll be able to make your own comparison before long!

What are your thoughts of the young Ecuadorians, Fidel "The Ecuadorian Neymar" Martinez (Deportivo Quito) and Fernando Gaibor (Emelec)? They seem to be playing well ahead of their age. Pacheg10
A poor man's Neymar is still something to be! Martinez has done wonderfully well so far in the Copa Libertadores, wide left in that Neymar position, offering a creative threat with both feet.

I first saw him in the Ecuador side that won the 2007 Pan-American gold medal. After Jefferson Montero I thought he was one of the most interesting players. Cruzeiro in Brazil picked him up but the early move didn't work out.

He's made a big impression since moving back to Ecuador last year, though, and is certainly one to watch, as is Gaibor. I thought he was the best all-round midfielder in last year's South American Under-20 Championships and he's kept getting better since.

It was Chelsea's only shot on target in the match. Had it not gone in, would their approach in the second half have been bolder?

I am inclined to doubt it. From a Chelsea point of view, scoring was great - but even better was stopping Barcelona get on the score sheet.

The away goals rule was introduced to encourage adventure from the visiting side and, for a while, seemed to be successful. But there is a sense now that it often has a very different effect - giving the home side in the first leg a powerful incentive not to concede.

Bolivar have breathed new life into Bolivian football. Photo: Getty

There are those in Europe who argue that the rule has outlived its usefulness, that in a continent where journey times are short there is no need to offer such a benefit to the away side.

In South America things are different. For a start, the continent is bigger. Journey times are huge, and there are conditions such as altitude and temperature differences which make it hard for the visitors.

Away wins are much rarer on this side of the Atlantic. So far in World Cup qualification there have been 11 home wins and two away. The group phase of this year's Copa Libertadores, the continent's Champions League equivalent, came to a close last week with a score of 56-23 in favour of the hosts.

With this in mind, it is possibly true that the away goals rule makes more sense in South America than it does in Europe. The rule was introduced in the Libertadores in 2005 and has already made its presence felt.

Eight groups of four contest the tournament, with the top two from each group going through to the knockout stage. There, the eight group winners meet the eight second-placed teams, with the group winner with the best campaign meeting the second-placed side with the worst campaign, and so on.

It would be expected, then, that the group winners would prevail. They, after all, have done better so far in the competition. The contest is weighted in their favour by the fact they have the right to play the second leg at home.

This is perceived as a considerable advantage and teams are prepared to fight for it. Had they glanced at recent history perhaps they would not try so hard.

Last year, of the eight second-round contests, five went against form, and were won by the group runner-up. Over the last five years this has happened more often than not.
In considerable part, this is a tribute to the glorious unpredictability of football but it also has something to do with the effect of the away goals rule.

Far from being a handicap, for the inferior side it might even be an advantage to be at home for the first leg, keep things tight and then look to play on the break in the return game.
This was certainly the secret of Uruguayan club Penarol's run to last year's final. As one of the qualifiers with the worst record in the group phase, they were at home in the first leg of every knock-out round - and turned the supposed punishment into a positive advantage.

In those four home games they conceded just one goal - and then scoring on their travels kept getting them through. Penarol then came unstuck in the final, because this is the only time when the away goals rule is not used.

Had it been in effect, their 0-0 draw at home to Santos of Brazil in the first leg would have been a very useful result. In the event, Santos won 2-1 to take the title. If the away goals rule had been in operation then against such proficient counter-attacking opponents the Brazilians might have felt more inhibited about pushing forward.

This is not a problem that the defending champions are likely to face this week, even though the away goals rule is in effect when they get the knock-out rounds underway. In their first leg,

Santos are away to Bolivar, the theme of last week's column who last Wednesday beat Chile's Universidad Catolica 3-0 to become the first Bolivian side to make it out of the group phase for 12 years.

Under Argentine coach Angel Hoyos, once in charge of Barcelona B, Bolivar are not counter-attack specialists and they will also surely be going all out to get the most from playing at the extreme altitude of La Paz.

Brazilian clubs are so uncomfortable at altitude that a few years ago they launched a campaign to ban games in these conditions. Santos have already lost in La Paz in the current campaign, going down 2-1 to Bolivar's local rivals The Strongest.

Should Bolivar pull off a surprise and get through to the quarter-finals, it will surely not come through cunning use of the away goals rule, but rather from the more traditional route of making the most of home advantage.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag;

Colombian striker Jackson Martinez, 25, who plays for Jaguares in Mexico, is being tipped for a big-money move to Europe this summer. What are your thoughts?
Oliver Serrant

He's quick, sleek and uncomplicated. A thoroughly proficient front to goal finisher. My doubt is about his touch and overall approach play. He doesn't offer much else, so if he gets a move and he's not scoring early then confidence could slump.

Can you give your views on whether Lionel Messi is a great or not?
Chris Bender

I don't think Messi's greatness can possibly be in doubt. In terms of standard of play the Champions League is the best we have. Season after season Messi is outstanding in it. The best of all time is a different debate and a very frustrating one. How to compare eras? There's the fact that Messi is probably not even the half-way stage of his career

Twelve places have so far been filled, with some high drama along the way.

For a few sweet seconds, for example, Flamengo of Rio thought they had saved themselves from elimination.

Fielding the likes of Ronaldinho and Vagner Love, they should have strolled through, but a disappointing campaign left them needing a combination of results to go their way in last Thursday's final round.

They had to win at home to Lanus of Argentina - the relatively easy part, since their opponents had already made sure of qualification. The hard part came in the other game, which kicked off at the same time. Olimpia of Paraguay and Emelec of Ecuador had to draw.

The winner in Asuncion would go through with Lanus.

"Emelec, Emelec," sang Flamengo fans.

They should have been more careful what they wished for because, by the time the final whistle blew in Rio, the Ecuadorians had turned things round - they led 2-1, with five minutes of stoppage time to play.

Ronaldinho's Flamengo crashed out of the Copa Libertadores. Photo: Getty

The Flamengo crowd applauded their team - Ronaldinho had finally produced a performance worthy of his name - but they were resigned to elimination.

And then Olimpia equalised. Suddenly Rio was about to party. The crowd sung in jubilation, the Flamengo players hugged each other, jumped up and down and gave interviews celebrating their miraculous escape - all cut short and turned to tears by the news that Emelec had gone straight up the other end and scored a 94th minute winner.

And so it is the Ecuadorians who go through, after winning both of their last two games in stoppage time.

But they might not be the biggest surprise team in the last 16. Both Bolivian representatives still have a chance, despite no side from the country making it out of the group phase since 2000.

The Strongest, though, will need to perform a super-human show of strength to progress. They need a win away to reigning champions Santos of Brazil, and it is entirely possible that only a five-goal victory margin will be good enough.

Bolivar, meanwhile, have a much better chance. They only need a draw against Universidad Catolica of Chile, and they are playing at home, where the extreme altitude of La Paz makes life so difficult for the visitors.

But there is a striking detail in Bolivar's campaign because they have picked up more points away than at home. Even more striking is the way they have done it.

Typically, Bolivian sides on their travels will attempt to be ultra-cautious, hanging off their own crossbar like a collection of bats, hiding the ball and praying for the final whistle.

The Bolivar of 2012 are very different. In all three of their away games, they have looked to take the initiative, playing at a high tempo, throwing their full-backs forward, fielding strikers in wide spaces and seeking to set up triangles and create two-against-one situations down the flanks.

Part of the explanation for this bold new approach can be traced back to Barcelona. Angel Hoyos, Bolivar's Argentine coach, was in charge of Barcelona B from 2001-6, during which time he helped a certain Lionel Messi on his way.

After leaving Catalonia he spent five years in Greece and Cyprus, before moving back across the Atlantic to join Bolivar at the start of last year.

Perhaps his finest hour so far in his current job was the 1-0 win away to Junior of Barranquilla in this year's Libertadores. The massive stadium of the Colombian club can be an intimidating arena for visitors, and the heat can be awkward for altitude-based Bolivians.

However, Hoyos' team deserved their win.

"I told the players," he said afterwards, "that they were allowed to lose the game, but they were not allowed to lose the idea, the philosophy and the valiant mentality."

Such a bold approach has its risks. Bolivar can lack the penalty area presence to take advantage of all the width they create, and the attacking approach, especially the high positioning of the full-backs, can leave them alarmingly open.

Last week, away to Union Espanola of Chile, they conceded a type of goal rarely seen in top-class professional football.

The opposing keeper's punt forward left Jaime free down the left channel, one-on-one with Marcos Arguello in the Bolivar goal. Sebastián Jaime nodded past the keeper and the ball seemed to be going in until centre-forward Emanuel Herrera provided the killer touch almost on the line - end-to-end in three touches, one of which may have been superfluous.

But the opposing counter-attack will always be a risk for a team which seeks to take the initiative, and it is surely best for Bolivar to stick to their guns on Tuesday night rather than rely on the fact that a draw is good enough to get them over the line.

Universidad Catolica are dangerous opponents. They have been a huge disappointment in this year's Libertadores, coach Mario Lepe struggling in vain for the right blend, but they are packed with attacking talent and, with Chilean sides more comfortable than most at altitude, they will fancy their chances of saving themselves.

Going all out to exploit Catolica's defensive deficiencies is the home side's best bet as they seek to become the first Bolivian club in more than a decade to reach the knockout stage.

It is the way Bolivar have played it so far, and the way coach Hoyos is making a name for himself.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:

Q) I have heard a few good things about Paraguayan striker Mauro Caballero, but I have never seen him play myself. I have heard there is interest in him from within Europe, despite him only being 17. Is he actually something special, or is he another that at present is only potential and needs time? I often feel players who cut their teeth in Europe, particularly in Portugal, often do better as professionals. Do you think this path would suit him as well?
Thomas Wright

A) I do hope Caballero could be something special. His dad was a good player, but the son looks better. He has a good left foot, jack-in-the-box penalty area pace and awareness. He is a very exciting talent. With him at Libertad and the strikingly mature Alexis Henriquez at Universidad de Chile, this is proving to be a good Libertadores for 17-year-old strikers!
Of course they need time, and I'd hate either to be rushed into a premature move. The most important thing at this stage is to get first-team opportunities.
I take your point about Portugal - it works well for some, but not nearly as well for others who are deemed surplus to requirements. The Portuguese giants buy up so many South Americans that there simply isn't space for many of them.

Q) I was wondering if you could shed any light on the fortunes of Kerlon? I seem to remember him being the star of an Under-17 tournament, but since he signed for Inter I haven't heard, or seen, anything of him.
Andy Ingram

A) He's trying to get fit enough to play for Nacional of Nova Serrana, a relatively small club who play in the State Championship of Minas Gerais (Brazil).
He did come to prominence in the South American Under-17 tournament seven years ago, where he won instant fame with his 'seal dribble' - running with the ball bouncing off his nose.
He was much more than a trickshow artist, though. He really stood out for the versatility of his attacking midfield talent.
However, two things have stalled his career. First, he became a victim of his party piece, under pressure to produce the 'seal dribble' every time he played. Much worse, though, was a succession of injuries.
They first struck in 2005 - he missed that year's World Under-17 Cup and, ever since, it's been one injury after another. He's been at Nacional for months, and is only now ready to play for a few minutes.
He's now 24, and you fear for him ever launching a senior career - a real shame, because with his quality and imagination he was shaping to be a very interesting player.

On 14 April, 1912 - the very day the Titanic hit an iceberg which caused it to sink - Santos were founded, beginning their rise to become one of the most remarkable clubs in football history.

Santos represent a relatively small city, with a population of a little more than 400,000, which grew to prominence as the port through which much of Brazil's coffee was exported. An hour's climb away is the metropolis of Sao Paulo, South America's biggest city, with more than 11 million inhabitants.

Santos are the reigning champions of South America - a title that Corinthians, Sao Paulo's biggest club, are still waiting to win.

Corinthians are the current domestic champions and are a major force. Sao Paulo FC have been Brazil's most consistent club over recent times and another local giant, Palmeiras, have a glorious history of their own.

The man most responsible for this state of affairs is Pele, who played for the club between 1956 and 1974.

One of football's happy accidents is that the 15-year-old Pele was introduced into a side that already was sensational, with top-class experienced players around him to guide the way.

Neymar is part of Santos' new batch of youngsters coming through the club. Photo: Getty

With such solid foundations, it was not long before the team was built around him.
Santos, Pele and a wonderful supporting cast deserve a mention in any debate about the greatest club side of all time.

Their claims would be greater still had they not opted against playing in the Copa Libertadores, South America's Champions League, after 1965.

They won the tournament in 1962 and 1963, and both times went on to win what was then considered the world title, beating the European champions over two legs.In the first of those duels, they thrashed Benfica 5-1 in Lisbon - a performance Pele considers the finest of his career.

There could have been more occasions like that, but financial considerations weighed heavily. Pele and company had to be paid.

At the time there was no money in the Libertadores - this was before the TV age, and travelling costs were excessive. The solution was to travel the world playing lucrative friendlies.

Pele was happy enough with this arrangement because, at the time, Brazil did not select players who were based abroad. He could tour the globe with Santos and still star in the World Cup.

Incredibly, the tournament rarely saw him at his very best. He was still developing in 1958 and past his athletic prime in 1970.

In 1966 he was kicked out of it, and in 1962, which could have been his finest hour (check out his goal against Mexico) he was injured in the second game.

Even so, the World Cup is the source of much of Pele's prestige. At the time it was the biggest stage in the game, where the connoisseur expected to see the highest level of play and the most interesting tactical advances.

Times have changed, but Santos are still punching way above their weight.
Post-Pele there was an inevitable hangover, but in the last decade the club have come roaring back.

Santos have become known for their youth development work, winning the Brazilian title in 2002 with a team spearheaded by the teenage duo of Diego and Robinho. The outstanding Neymar is the star of the current side, supported by playmaker Paulo Henrique Ganso.

And now, in Luis Alvaro Ribeiro, they also have an interesting and ambitious club president. Ribeiro likes to think big.

Many thought that Neymar would already have been sold by now. Instead Ribeiro has brought enough sponsors on board to ensure that the player is already earning European-style wages, and is under contract until 2014.

"But," says Ribeiro, "as a dreamer, I like to imagine that in 2014 Neymar will be Olympic champion and will have won a World Cup in Brazil, so he will be fully satisfied and will stay longer."

The problem is this - even if Ribeiro's predictions come true they will not be enough for Neymar to feel entirely satisfied from a professional point of view.

This is no longer Pele's time. In terms of the level of the game, the World Cup is no longer a reference. It has lost out to Europe's Champions League.

The more stubborn nationalistic South Americans complain that the Champions League is only good because of the foreigners who play in it.

The Champions League is where Lionel Messi confronts Didier Drogba, the meeting point of the best from the four corners of the globe. It is where the best players win each others' respect.

Ribeiro, to his credit, argues extensively that Brazilian clubs need to take on European opposition, and wants a break in the calendar for Santos and others to take part in international pre-season tournaments.

This is a step forward - but more in terms of marketing than in football.

There is a world of difference between a pre-season friendly and a competitive match. Ribeiro should know the difference.

He admits that Santos learned "an extraordinary lesson" when they were hammered by Barcelona in the final of the World Club Cup last December. The change in style of the team owes much to what happened that day.

This, perhaps, is the real long-term task of Luis Alvaro Ribeiro and those who follow him - to push for a calendar that gives the top South American sides more chances to take on their European counterparts on a competitive basis, to have more occasions like Pele's masterclass against Benfica in 1962, the undoubted highlight in the first 100 years of Santos FC.

Some might make the point that they were hardly at home last week.

The Lisbon giants kicked off without a single Portuguese player - and with an extraordinary complement of nine South Americans in their starting line-up, plus another on the bench (alongside a Brazilian-born Spaniard), and one more ruled out by injury.

And that is not even the half of it. Benfica have a further 17 South American players out on loan with other teams.

Of the four big clubs here in my adopted city of Rio, three have a midfielder who is on the books of Benfica: Airton at Flamengo, Felipe Menezes at Botafogo and Fellipe Bastos at Vasco da Gama - who also have right-sided striker Eder Luis.

Nicolas Gaitan has been on fine form for Benfica in the Champions League and may be persuaded to move to one of the more successful clubs in Europe. Photo: Getty

Old colonial and linguistic ties explain why Brazil is Benfica’s favourite shopping venue - five of last week’s first team are from South America’s giant, plus another 10 who are out on loan.

But they are also on the lookout for talent all over the continent, snapping up players from Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.

Benfica come back from the South American sales with more players than they can ever use. Many will simply not get an opportunity. This can happen to big name players.

Enzo Perez is a full Argentine international, a versatile right-sided midfielder who was fundamental to the campaign of Estudiantes when they won the Copa Libertadores, South America’s Champions League, in 2009.

Frustrated at not getting a look in at Benfica, after a few short months he has already been loaned back to La Plata, lining up once more with Estudiantes.

Benfica will not be too concerned if he and a few others in a similar situation spend their entire contracts out on loan, after which time they become free agents. Perez may yet return to triumph in the red shirt.

But if not, if Benfica get nothing from him, then he can be written off as an acceptable business cost. If so many South Americans are signed up, then some of them will inevitably prove surplus to requirements.

But there are another two groups that are extremely useful.

One consists of the type of player who gives long term, solid service. All-action Uruguayan right back Maxi Pereira is one example, but perhaps the best is Brazilian club captain Luisao.

The gangling centre back has rarely been first choice for Brazil. But one after another, national team coaches queue up to name him in their squads. He has been to the last two World Cups, and at the age of 31, is even in consideration to be one of the over-age players in Brazil’s Olympic squad.

All of this is evidence of the type of man he is - one happy to put team before self, an ideal team captain. Luisao has been at Benfica for the long haul.

For the more glamorous players, though, it is often a case of two or three years and out. Benfica buy enough South American lottery tickets to hit the jackpot now and again, and sell someone on at a huge profit.

This, of course, needs good scouting. David Luiz, for example, was picked up as a raw youngster, and Ramires was acquired just as he was on the verge of breaking into the Brazil squad. Both, of course, were subsequently big money signings for Chelsea, Wednesday’s opponents.

It is this third group of South Americans, the potential stars, who finance the whole project. In the short term they tip the balance on the field. In the long term they boost the club’s finances.

The next one along the line is surely Nicolas Gaitan of Argentina, signed from Boca Juniors in 2010, and a likely target for a giant from a bigger league in the next transfer window.

Gaitan was originally groomed as a playmaker, a consequence of the Argentine obsession with the old fashioned number 10. A similar thing happened with Carlos Tevez at Boca a few years earlier.

When Juan Roman Riquelme was sold to Barcelona, attempts were made to force the young Tevez into a Riquelme-shaped hole, until the 2003 Libertadores campaign made it clear that he did his best work close to the opposing goal.

Riquelme was back at Boca by the time Gaitan was breaking through, and the youngster was originally seen either as his replacement or as his partner, operating on the left of midfield.

But it was clear that Gaitan was at his most effective when he broke into the forward line.
Veteran coach Alfio Basile transformed him into a support striker.

He played his best football for Boca on the right side of the attack, from where his booming left-footed crosses had an ideal trajectory for big centre forward Martin Palermo to attack at the far post.

At Benfica he is free to roam, and can cause havoc with his crossing from either flank. But he is much more than a winger.

He retains the number 10’s vision for a defence splitting pass, and also has the capacity to dart inside to find goalscoring positions.

All of this was on show last Saturday when he set up Bruno Cesar’s injury time winner against Braga.
It is the versatility of his attacking talent that makes Gaitan so interesting.

If Benfica are to stage a second leg comeback against Chelsea, then he is likely to be behind it. But whatever happens on Wednesday, Gaitan’s time with Benfica could well be drawing to a close.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I’ll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week’s postbag:

Q) With Brazil’s economy recently overtaking the UK’s, can you foresee an increase of foreign investment in Brazilian clubs like there has been in other aspects of Brazilian businesses? If so, will you expect to see more Brazilian exports returning to their homeland rather than prolong a career in Europe as well as other gems such as Neymar and Ganso staying?
Sean Brown

A) There has been a significant change in the conditions of trade, with big name players coming back earlier than before and young prospects staying longer. But one thing remains the same - players are still aiming to spend their peak years in the Champions League. Regardless of any financial considerations, in purely professional terms domestic Brazilian football cannot currently offer a similar challenge.
Investing in clubs is problematic because of the difficulty of establishing control. Brazil’s clubs are not businesses. They are social membership clubs. You cannot buy up the shares and then own the club.

 Q) What are the prospects of getting a global champions league in place? Or at least one that includes South American clubs? I live in The USA and am an avid fan of the game. I would very much enjoy a tournament that included teams from more than just Europe. Is this feasible?
Patrick Klasen

A) I’d love to throw this one open for debate. There is, of course, a tournament that includes the champions of all the continents - the World Club Cup, something I would like to see receive more attention, especially in Europe.
The Europeans can argue that the current superiority of their teams does not make for an attractive tournament - but that superiority is not permanent.
A combination of economic and football development could level the playing field. Might an improved World Club Cup one day pave the way for a global Champions League? What do people think?

At the age of 95, Havelange remains a force of nature. Over 30 years ago he used his strength to change world football.

When Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards made his recent remarks about Fifa "stealing football from the English", there can be little doubt that he had 1974 in mind. That was the year that Havelange unseated England's Sir Stanley Rous to become Fifa president.

It was a time of change. After the Second World War, Europe represented more than half of Fifa's membership. By 1974, the old continent was down to less than a third. The post-colonial age was producing new nations, increasingly unhappy at being shut out of the game.

Much of this has problematic elements. The extent to which the game sells its soul with such commercial dealings is an interesting debate, though by no means one limited to Fifa business.

Joao Havelange was Fifa president between 1974 and 1998. Photo: Getty

There is little doubt, though, that in the case of Fifa that organisational structures and general transparency were not improved to cope adequately with the amounts of money now sloshing around the game.

There are clear problems in the total dependence of some nations on Fifa hand-outs. The scope for corruption was enormous, and the cold and autocratic Havelange was not the only one to have his name involved with scandals.

Corruption is, of course, deeply lamentable, a cancer that grows in organisations, undermining basic values as it goes. There is, though, a basic point about Fifa corruption which is rarely made; it has been the unwelcome by-product of a project that achieved its aims.

Havelange's ideas of globalising the game were clearly successful. The World Cup was taken to Asia, Africa and the USA for the first time. Football generates amounts in TV rights and sponsorship deals which would have been unthinkable in 1974, precisely because the global popularity of the game has gone through the roof.

Would this really have happened had the Europeans stayed in charge? Would anyone really want to go back to the time of Stanley Rous, who organised the 1966 World Cup with just one place for all of Asia and Africa combined?

To the end of his reign, and with no regrets, Rous fought in favour of South Africa's inclusion, long after the country had been expelled from the Olympic movement. The logic appeared to be that the local FA could hardly be blamed for carrying out government policy.

Nowadays, Europe's clubs protest about Fifa's operations, but it comes across as a smokescreen to help them get what they want - less international football, and more compensation for allowing 'their' players to take part in it.

When it comes to the rest of the world they typically seem more concerned with plucking the fruit than watering the plant. An inclusive, global vision is lacking.

Rightly or wrongly, with all its flaws and problems, Joao Havelange had one.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:

Q) Could it be argued that Pele's goalscoring record is flawed, given that a large proportion of those goals were scored in friendlies and the Campeonato Paulista?
JJ Donnelly

A) It certainly could. To be fair to Pele, though, the Campeonato Paulista (Sao Paulo State Championship) was much, much better in his day than it is now. It was taken much more seriously and the depth of talent was much deeper than these days, when so many Brazilians are sold abroad.

Having said that, Pele's scoring figures have been boosted massively by friendlies, games in the army and so on. None of this detracts for a moment from his greatness as a player. He was a machine for playing football, and time and time again he passed the real test of the great player, giving magnificent performances for his team on big occasions.

For this reason Pele was very unwise recently when he said that Lionel Messi needs to score 1283 goals to be worthy of a comparison. The greatness of Pele does not lie in statistical accumulation.

Peter Fleming was part of an eccentric expedition into the Brazilian jungle in the early 1930s, which he wrote about in a book best remembered for its stand out line.

"Sao Paulo," he mused, "is like Reading, only much further away" - an observation which does, of course, depend on one's starting point, but which contains an excellent piece of insight.

Fleming was kicking against the perception some had in England at the time of Sao Paulo being some Wild West outpost, "the sort of town where tanned and wary men, riding in from great distances, scatter the poultry in the rutted streets and leave their ponies outside the saloon".

The structure of domestic football in Brazil means clubs are not tapping into the potential of a passionate supporter base

Even 20 years ago, Brazilian friends in London were still being asked whether they had electricity at home, or if they saw snakes in the street.

"The truth," continues Fleming, "is very different. As you watch the straw hats bustling in and out of Woolworths you feel - with satisfaction or regret, according to your nature - that here is the South America that matters, the South America of the future. One day the whole sub-continent will be like this."

It is an excellent observation, and one extremely pertinent to the development of football in the region. Because football is the game of the city.

One of the main reasons that football caught on so quickly in this part of the world is precisely because its arrival coincided with an age of huge urban expansion.

Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay grew enormously in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Immigrants flooded in, both from rural areas and from abroad, sailing in from Europe and the Middle East. New connections were made, new ways of life adopted. Football was one of the novelties.

Introduced by the British, the game was originally restricted to the elite. It was the growth of the cities that made it possible for football to slide down the social scale so quickly, to be picked up and reinterpreted by the poor, and for this reinterpretation to lead to international triumphs and recognition for what had been seen as a remote part of the world.

But 80 years after Fleming put pen to paper, the essential truth of his observation has yet to be grasped by those running Brazilian football.

Brazil has huge clubs - based, of course, in the big cities - who can count their supporters in the tens of millions. But in the structure of the way the game is run, the clubs are not so important.

They take second place to the federations - one for each of the 27 states that comprise this giant country. And inside the federations, sheer force of numbers means that the power is with the little clubs - or those who control them.

The outcome is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog, a calendar built around the needs of the minnows.

Between mid-January and mid-May, the big clubs are forced to waste their time playing in their respective state championship. They are up against clubs so small they barely deserve to be described as professional.

One game in Rio's first division drew 10 paying supporters. Crowds of under 100 are commonplace. And Flamengo are paying Ronaldinho a fortune to take part.

As well as being an exercise in futility, the state championships throw Brazil's calendar out of sync with the rest of the world. There is no time for a proper pre-season, no gap for the clubs to travel to lucrative pre-season tournaments abroad, and, World Cup year apart, no pause in the middle of the year.

So during last year's Copa America and World Youth Cup, and again during this year's Olympics, Brazil's clubs will be deprived of their best players right at the heart of the season.

Having giants play minnows on a league basis makes no sense. In a cup format, though, it is a completely different matter. A huge part of the charm of a cup competition is the possibility it provides for the little team to seize a moment of glory.

And so while I am dead against Brazil's state championships in the format currently used, I am all in favour of the Brazilian Cup, whose 2012 incarnation is just getting under way.

It is a competition whose cup runneth over with wonderful stories, with remote teams from the north having a crack at some of the big stars from the south east.

The Cup is set to be expanded next year, but as currently played it is contested on a knock-out basis by 64 clubs from all over the country.

Here, too, I would make a change. The ties take place over two legs. To my mind, a single game would be far better.

The league exists to crown the best, most consistent club. With a cup, luck of the draw is all part of the drama, and a greater chance of upsets is something to be celebrated.

I proposed this once on Brazilian TV. My colleagues seemed dumfounded, but I was able to point out that it has worked well enough in the FA Cup for over 140 years.

Cutting back to one leg also suits a country the size of Brazil. Halving the number of games creates space to double the number of participants. With 128 clubs competing on a pure knock-out basis, the chance of the occasional upset is greatly increased.

As Peter Fleming's brother might have commented, a domestic cup competition on those lines would come equipped with a licence to thrill.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag;

Q) Do you think that the abdication (I think is the best word) of Ricardo Teixeira as president of Brazil's FA can help the professionalization of their football?
Bartlomiej Rabij

A) It can't do any harm. But it's not just about Teixeira. It's hard to think of a more dim-witted public figure than Teixeira, but if someone that limited can stay in power for so long (23 years) there is clearly a support structure behind him - which in this case is mainly the presidents of the various state federations, who seem to form a useless layer of bureaucracy.

Fundamental change can only come from the clubs. Can they step up? Can they agree on a way forward for themselves and the future of the game? Brazil has reached its 1992 moment - when the English clubs broke away to form the Premier League. Can Brazil's clubs do something similar, maybe even better?

It was not only the date on which Lionel Messi chalked up his five for Barcelona in the Champions League; in the South American equivalent, the Copa Libertadores, Neymar of Santos also added a magnificent hat-trick of his own.

The first was nothing to write home about - a penalty which was perhaps harshly awarded. But there can be no quibbles about the other two. Both times Neymar picked up possession in his own half, cut through the defence and ran some 70 metres before scoring.

The goals showcased his extraordinary control over the ball while running at pace, his capacity to understand space and improvise with its possibilities inside a fraction of a second, and also his eerily cool finishing.

Neymar (left) could be to the Copa Libertadores what Messi is to the Champions League. Photo: Getty

One goal was a right-footed finish, the other a left. Both of them serve as a convincing declaration of a rare talent.

There can be few qualms about the opposition either. Santos were playing fellow Brazilians Internacional in a clash between the last two winners of the Libertadores.

Some will point out that Internacional have fielded stronger defensive units than the one they put out on Wednesday.

It is a fair point and it is also true that so far Neymar has found it difficult to produce moments of this quality when playing for Brazil - observations that make him one of world football's most fascinating narrative strands to follow over the next few years.

There is no doubt that the talent is all there. But how will he cope when pitted against better, stronger defenders, in spaces reduced by higher defensive lines, and with less protection from the referee? How will Neymar fare when he is up against the best?

Of course, he has already had one such experience, when his Santos side took on Barcelona last December in the final of the World Club Cup. They were brushed aside even more easily than the 4-0 scoreline might suggest. But it was hardly Neymar's fault.

How could it be when his team barely had the ball? This was not an individual failure, it was a collective one.

"I came back from Japan after our defeat by Barcelona convinced that we need to renew our football," said Santos president Luis Alvaro Ribeiro.

"We spend a lot of time gazing at our own belly button. We were beaten by a new football that we didn't know."

Implicit in his comments is a criticism of the coach Muricy Ramalho. Hugely successful in Brazilian football, Ramalho loves to talk about how hard he works. But after studying Barcelona for six months, there was little evidence of progress.

He merely sent out his team with the formula he knows best - three big centre-backs, hope to hold the opposition at bay and break out with a goal from a counter-attack or a set-piece. As his team were torn to shreds he cut a pitiful figure on the bench.

The warning signs were there in a big interview he gave a few weeks earlier to Brazil's sports daily 'Lance!' when he came across as complacent.

European coaches, he said, were only worthy of seven out of 10. To get top marks they would have to succeed in the Brazilian context - with an insane calendar, sub-standard structure and unpaid wages.

Since he has thrived in such conditions, it was clear that he was awarding himself the full 10.

It was a silly thing to say, firstly because it makes a fetish of poor working conditions, as if they are the true test of quality.

Secondly, because taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean that Brazilian coaches are the worst in South America and Bolivians are the best, because they have to work with the weakest players - and this surely was not Ramalho's intention.

He plumbed new depths in the press conference following the match against Barcelona, when he said that the defeat his side suffered would not have the slightest effect on them. After waiting six months to be measured against the best and then to have been massacred in such a manner, his words were fooling no-one - least of all, as it turns out, himself.

Over the last five years, with three different clubs, Ramalho has won four Brazilian titles and the Copa Libertadores. No-one is lucky for that long. There are clearly merits in what he does - and it now seems likely that the experience of coming up against Barcelona has shaken him out of his complacency.

Alongside the performance of Neymar, the most interesting thing about Santos last Wednesday was the way they pressed Internacional in midfield, with clusters of three and four players aggressively advancing to close down the opponent in possession.

This is not a normal part of the Brazilian game and it was surely influenced by Barcelona, as was the make-up of the midfield. A team can only put so much energy into winning the ball if it knows that possession will not be given away cheaply. Unlike many contemporary Brazilian midfields, all four of the Santos quartet are comfortable on the ball.

Their pressing was not perfect. They probably would have had more problems if opposition coach Dorival Junior had remained true to his convictions and sent out a team that sought to impose itself rather than contain.

As it was, Internacional were able to expose the defensive weaknesses of Santos left-back Juan, once of Arsenal, and could easily have scored three times from passes played inside him.

Even so Santos were well worth their 3-1 win and it was fascinating to observe the development that has taken place since they lost to Barcelona. It raised hopes that if the two teams manage to retain their respective continental titles then the final of this year's World Club Cup might be a more interesting affair.

Perhaps Neymar, as well as Messi, would have a platform to show his skills - and then we really would have a day of world football to celebrate.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week. From last week's postbag:

Q) In the English media there are suggestions of interest from Liverpool in Jackson Martinez, a Colombian striker who plays for Jaguares in Mexico. Do you think he's got the necessary attributes both as a professional and as a personality to achieve success in the Premier League or elsewhere in Europe? Jay Wynn

A) He's an out-and-out goalscorer, a front-to-goal centre-forward who can finish off both feet, and with excellent spring that makes him a threat in the air. Something of a late developer, he burst into life three years ago when he broke scoring records in Colombia with Medellin, and has since carried that form into Mexican football. The Premier League is a step up, though. His touch and general approach play are not great, and the worry would be that he might not build up a head of steam to feel confident about his game.

The hints were there late last year, in the second half of the World Cup qualifier away to Colombia, and now the Switzerland game has surely consolidated the Messi-Sergio Aguero link-up at the heart of the Argentine attack.

The pair have had a natural rapport for years, built up when they roomed together during the 2005 World Youth Cup, and now that understanding is clearly visible on the pitch through their pacy, dazzling exchanges.

Away to an adventurous Swiss side, there was space for the pair of them to explode on the counter-attack. Against more cautious opponents there could well be the need for the greater penalty area presence of Gonzalo Higuain.

More than any tactical innovations, Argentina will hope the Switzerland match proves important in psychological terms. Messi has enjoyed some excellent games for Argentina in the past, but this was the first time that the headlines in the local press proclaimed that he had produced his Barcelona form for the national team.

Messi has made over 67 appearances for Argentina, scoring 22 goals. Photo: Getty

This is significant because almost the only place in the world where the presence of Messi is not guaranteed to fill a stadium is in the land of his birth. He tries hard to identify himself with Argentina, with the city of Rosario and the Newells Old Boys club.

However, when performances are disappointing, he meets with resistance from his own people, who are quick to seize on the fact that he has been based in Barcelona from the age of 13.

"You're not really one of us," they seem to be saying. "You are more Catalan than Argentine. You don't sing the national anthem or feel with passion the colours of the flag."

And it does not matter what he says. Words do not count - deeds do.

The public want to see the Messi of Barcelona, often forgetting that for the national team he does not have a Daniel Alves to burst outside him, or a Xavi and Iniesta to supply him with the ball. But he does have Aguero.

The resistance towards Messi in an extreme case, but in the proud footballing cultures of Brazil and Argentina it does not take much for the European-based players to be viewed with suspicion.

If the national team are winning in style, little attention is paid to where they play their club football. Anything less, and those who play in Europe are sometimes branded uncaring mercenaries.

In any case, the call will always come for the selection of more home-based players.
This is a political reality the coach has to deal with - especially in contemporary Brazil, where with the clubs paying top wages there are more viable candidates for the national team playing their football for domestic clubs.

Last year, for example, Brazil boss Mano Menezes could hardly afford not to recall Ronaldinho to the national team. The former world player of the year had moved back home to join Flamengo, the country's most popular club.

Around the middle of the year he found flickers of form. Brazil, meanwhile, had done badly in the Copa America and were not looking good in friendlies- giving Ronaldinho another chance became a political necessity.

Against Ghana at Craven Cottage last September it was soon apparent that he was off the pace. The rhythm of international football, as Menezes commented after the match, is more intense than that of the domestic Brazilian game.

He gave an interesting performance against Mexico late last year, organising from a deeper position, but his reign as first-choice number 10 may well have come to an end with an unimpressive display in last Tuesday's 2-1 win over Bosnia.

By now Ronaldinho has ceased to be the public's sweetheart, his credibility undermined by a dip in club form and his night time escapades. Mano Menezes gave him enough rope, and can now cut him loose if he chooses because he has Paulo Henrique Ganso of Santos ready to step up.

Brazil's game against Bosnia flowed much better after Ganso replaced Ronaldinho for the last half hour. The elegant left footer is a wonderful prospect - so much so that he too has also been at the centre of the nationalist debate.

When Ganso came through strongly two years ago, the Sao Paulo press were falling over themselves to praise him. He was, they said, already the best in the world in his position, a left-footed reincarnation of Zinedine Zidane.

It was conveniently forgotten that he was only shining in a desperately poor version of the Sao Paulo State Championship, and against poor opponents in the Brazilian Cup.
The problem was that the player appeared to believe his own publicity. Then came the reality check.

The subsequent two years have been filled with injuries and excellent learning opportunities - such as a disappointing Copa America and the experience of playing against Barcelona last December.

History could decide that Mano Menezes has played shrewdly with the political forces, using Ronaldinho as a shield while also holding back Ganso until the time was right for a natural transition in the ownership of Brazil's number 10 shirt.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week. From last week's postbag:

Q) I would say most Colombians are happy with the scoreline after the 2-0 win over Mexico, but I was disappointed in Colombia's style of play. I was expecting a build up from the back, short passing, and a possession game from Jose Pekerman. Instead there was a lot of counter-attacking. Are Colombia going to be a counter-attacking team from now on?
Fernando Fernandez

A) It's worth remembering that they were up against a Mexico side that really came at them, and the next two World Cup qualifiers are away from home, against Peru and Ecuador. So there's no harm in an early focus on the counter -attack, with the excellent Darlon Pabon high up the pitch on the flanks where he can do most damage. I was also pleased Juan Cuadrado played from the start - I think they've missed the kind of unpredictability he can bring. Aldo Leao Ramirez was the surprise inclusion, there to knit the game together from midfield - an indication that long-term Pekerman is looking beyond the counter.

Q) Chile's Milovan Mirosevic has signed with my adopted MLS team, Columbus Crew. Everyone seems very excited by his signing - calling him a designated player without the pricetag. He is also, inevitably, being dubbed the next Guillermo Barros Schelotto. Is he that good? Does he have the ability make the Crew a contender in the MLS this year? Will he bring the leadership to the Crew that they have been missing?
Ben Dettmar

A) I remember being really excited by Mirosevic when I saw him for the first time as a teenager back in 1998. He appeared to have so much - an attacking midfielder of strength and explosion, tight skills and a crashing right foot. I've seen many good performances from him over the years, but for reasons I've never understood he has not gone on to achieve as much in the game as I had hoped and expected.
I'm not sure about him as a team leader. I do not think he quite has that battle-hardened nature of Schelotto, but he's more physically dynamic and I think the club is justified in being excited about him.

As businesses go, football is unorthodox. Success is measured in trophies, not profits, and the relationship between the clubs is more like partners than true competitors. Clubs need each other and without enough opponents to sustain a season-long calendar there is no professional football.

This relationship is reflected at its most crude in the United States model. In Major League Soccer the league is a single entity. The risk of relegation has been removed, and competitive balance between the clubs is sought via the draft system, where the team that finished last gets first pick of the next generation of promising youngsters.

The idea of a club as a predominantly social organisation, owned by its fans, has an obvious attraction. In South America, though, it is looking very obsolete - without even getting into the issue that in some countries, notably Brazil, the members are not always representative of the fans.

One of the clear problems with this model is the fact that it allows so much politics to take place inside the club, with different factions jockeying for position. At its worst, in Argentina, it has helped give rise to the entrenched cancer of the professional football thug. From humble beginnings as an internal rent-a-mob, some of the Argentine gangs have become deeply entrenched and influential.

Another grave deficiency of the social club model is that it does not subject the clubs to the financial discipline of a normal business - which can lead to mismanagement and corruption. Presidents can sign players on contracts the club can barely afford, and then at the end of their mandate, having built up debts to the playing staff and the taxman, they simply walk away. Football is so important that the big clubs never get shut down however much they owe, and everything becomes a question of negotiation, staving off financial crisis for the next few months.

San Martin players such as Aldo Corzo have been forced to train in a park. Pic: Getty

Peruvian football is going through such a process at the moment. Tired of unpaid debts, the players union has been pushing for fiscal discipline. Last November I wrote about the dire situation of Universitario, the country's most successful club, where the players had not been paid for months. Their big rivals, Alianza Lima, find themselves in a similar predicament, as have more than half of the first division. In theory, clubs with debts to their players were not allowed to take part in this year's championship. In practice, it is all a question of negotiation.

The clubs were pushing for an extra 24 months to pay off what they already owe. The players union decided this was unacceptable, and called a strike for the first round of the championship two weeks ago. It held firm, and the clubs were represented by youth teams.

But this created a new problem. Those clubs with no debts were outraged by the fact that their players had joined the strike. To them it seemed like a betrayal. A couple of teams talked about sacking their entire playing staff. One went further. San Martin announced that they were withdrawing from professional football.

Some readers might recall my reports from San Martin games almost three years ago. Founded by a Lima university as recently as 2004, their support base was tiny and unorthodox. Usually South American terraces are full of banners with the names of local working class regions. San Martin's banners had been put up by students of dentistry, or administration and human resources. I saw one of their home games and one away - where a grand total of 33 fans, plus a mascot dressed up as a tooth - attended the local derby with Sporting Cristal.

But even without much support, San Martin managed to win the Peruvian championship three times in their short life. They were clearly doing something right. The very absence of fans might have been an advantage - no populist pressures to deal with. And perhaps the secret lay in their model of administration. San Martin were the first Peruvian club to set up along orthodox business lines.

All of this should lead to the conclusion that the club understood the nature of the business they had entered. But that must now be in doubt as a result of their decision to sack the players and wind up their activities.

It is impossible to see how the interests of San Martin were harmed by the action of the players. This, after all, is not an ordinary business where production was halted and losses incurred. All the teams played the first round with youth teams. No one snatched San Martin's "market share".

The players, moreover, have every reason to go on strike. True, this season they are with a club that pays on time. But next season things might be different. They might be with another club, in an industry that is not being well run.

Last week San Martin's director and club president Jose Antonio Chang said "the only way that the university will reconsider [the decision to end activities] is if all the clubs are up to date with their labour and tax obligations."

And yet this is the very state of affairs that the players' strike is seeking to bring about. It is an attempt to impose discipline on chaos. National team coach Sergio Markarian, perhaps a believer in Chinese proverbs, sees opportunity in the strike. "These events are positive for Peruvian football," he said, "because this crisis will force us to think about a better way of doing things."

Hopefully a lot of thinking, and even more negotiating, will take place in the next few days, in time for the championship to resume at the weekend. In the meantime, San Martin's players - or ex-players - are training in a Lima park. It would be good if they get their old jobs back. San Martin would surely not want to be remembered as the club that ran away when it could have stayed and been part of the solution.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag:

Q) I remember a few years back you saying that Alexandre Pato was touched by the hands of a genius, I don't think he has quite lived up to such high praise. He has been unlucky with injuries. One article I read suggested that it was due to him growing taller and more muscular in a short space of time and his body hasn't adjusted to the change? Is this the main reason?
Omar Gregory

A) I wonder if psychological motives have been more important, and the problems of dealing with so much so soon. Former AC Milan boss Carlo Ancelotti is an admirer, but wasn't always impressed with his attitude in training. When Dunga was in charge of Brazil he felt the same way.

Pato made a very unwise choice to marry a Brazilian soap opera actress. I could never imagine this one working. They were too young, he was just about to enter a world of temptations and she had to put on hold a high profile career to be with him in Italy. I always thought that one would end badly, and so it did - it made me wonder about the advice he is getting from people around him.

Flamengo were about to play Internacional in the Brazilian Championship. Reunited for the first time since winning the World Cup just over two years earlier, Romario and Bebeto were exchanging passes.

Bebeto was sleek and somehow vulnerable, like a cheetah. Romario was stocky and merciless, a perfect hyena. The two made natural hunting partners. It is inconceivable that Brazil would have won USA 94 without them.

But it was one thing for the pair of them to knuckle down and work together for the limited time frame of a tournament, especially with a big prize at the end. Doing it week in week out at club level would surely be a different matter. The pair had big egos and different temperaments. Now they were together at Flamengo, how would they get along? Would they fire together or end up sniping at each other?

Bebeto (centre) and Romario (right) were crucial to Brazil's victory in the 1994 World Cup. Photo: Getty

In the end the question could not be answered. During that game against Internacional, Romario limped off with one of the muscular problems that plagued that stage of his career. By the time he had recovered, Bebeto had been sold back to Sevilla in Spain.

All that remains, then, is the image of them knocking up before kick-off. And what stays in the mind is the easy intimacy created between them as the passes went back and forth. Today they would consider each other friends, but no words will ever match the bond forged by the presence of the ball.

Much attention - too much surely - is given to debates on individual players. Great teams are also often discussed. The spotlight falls much less on great partnerships - the building blocks that make up great teams. And when it does, it is usually on strike partnerships, like the complementary talents of the Romario-Bebeto combination, or a big man-little man duo like John Toshack and Kevin Keegan at Liverpool in the 1970s.

Just as interesting, but surely more neglected, are those little societies inside a team that help link one function to another. Those functions can be divided into three areas - win possession of the ball, set up the play, and finish.

Bobby Charlton, for example, never stops paying tribute to the work of Nobby Stiles. For both Manchester United and England, Stiles provided security, winning the ball so that Charlton could use it. Not all of his tackles would survive modern day scrutiny but Charlton is adamant Stiles was a genuinely great player. What is surely not in doubt is that they formed a superbly effective partnership.

My favourite little society at the moment can be found a little higher up the pitch, linking the functions of setting up the play and finishing off the move - in this case for Atletico Nacional of Colombia.

The playmaker is Macnelly Torres, one of those rare figures with both the vision to spot the killer pass and the technique to deliver it. Now 27, he has had an up-and-down career. Part of that inconsistency is surely down to the on-field relationships formed with his strikers. The man on the ball dies a lonely death if there is no movement in front of him.

Now at Nacional he had an excellent partner to latch on to his defence-splitting passes. Dorlan Pabon is a stocky little striker, bullet fast. He is capable of striking the ball on the run off either foot and does most of his best work down the flanks, especially the right.

Torres and Pabon were in harness a year ago when Nacional won the first of the two separate championships that Colombia stages per year. Then Torres went off to Mexico to play for San Luis on loan. Without him the team were not nearly as good but that title win had guaranteed Nacional's place in this year's Copa Libertadores, South America's equivalent of the Champions League.

The club have made major investments in defence, midfield and attack. More than the new faces, though, perhaps the most important re-enforcement was the return of Macnelly Torres, and therefore the return of his partnership with Dorlan Pabon.

That link-up showed its potency two weeks ago when Atletico Nacional made their Libertadores debut against Universidad de Chile, the team who back in December won the Copa Sudamericana, the continent's Europa League, in fine style. 'La U' won that trophy with a run of 10 wins, two draws and no defeats, 21 goals scored and just two conceded.

The Libertadores was always likely to be harder, not least because 'la U' paid the normal South American price of success - they placed in the shop window three of their most important players, who subsequently moved on. It might take time for coach Jorge Sampaoli to bed in his reinforcements. The trip to Medellin to face Nacional looked like a tough debut, and so it proved.

The Colombians won 2-0, and the clinching second goal came from a source that had been threatening all night to undo the Chilean defence. Torres chipped into space, a pass hit at the correct angle and with perfect weight, and Pabon latched on, shrugged off the defender and struck a beautifully balanced shot on the turn back across the goalkeeper.

This Tuesday night Nacional are in action again, in Uruguay away to Penarol, an adventurous side who need a win. There should be plenty of space for the Torres-Pabon double act to do some damage - and highlight once more the importance of little partnerships inside a team.

Comments on the piece in the space provided. Questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.

From last week's postbag;
Q) I'm an Exeter City fan and recently there's been a lot of club press around the possibility of an historic rematch of the 1914 Brazil v Exeter City game - the first game ever played by a national Brazilian team.

I would love to see this game happen - the press from the club is suitably careful but does sound positive that, from a commercial and a footballing perspective, there seems to be some interest in getting the game to happen.

Given that Brazil will be mainly focused on the World Cup in 2014, can you give us any insight into the local feeling around a rematch?

Terry Hall

A) I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of Exeter directors on their recent trip to Rio trying to fix the game up.

It clearly won't happen on the actual centenary date in July, because everyone will have had their fill of football by then.

The idea is to stage it shortly before the World Cup, which would be a terrific coup for Exeter because media from all over the planet will be there.

The match in 1914 took place in the stadium of Fluminense - I think they would love it to happen. Their lovely old ground is only used for training these days, and they would like to transform it into a museum. Staging the match there fits their purpose.

And so the unknown quantity is Brazil - who will, of course, be fully focused on the World Cup, which begins on 12 June 2014. They will be under pressure the likes of which no team has ever experienced. So a game against Exeter might not be seen as adequate preparation. But if not then I think it should prove easy enough to organise a game against a Brazil Masters team, as happened in Exeter a few years back.

Q) I was wondering if you could give me a bit of information on the current state of affairs with Boca Juniors. I am currently watching their game versus Union Santa Fe and they seem classless, lazy and insipid - unable to break down a recently promoted team who show a bit of enthusiasm. How can this team possibly be the Champions?

Simon

A) Look at the goals against column. In their 19 games last season Boca conceded six, two of them after the title was sewn up.

Coach Julio Cesar Falcioni was always in for an interesting ride at Boca. He doesn't have the habit of playing with an old style number 10 and at Boca, of course, Juan Roman Riquelme is king. It took Falcioni a while to work out how to set up his team with Riquelme plus two strikers. It is a balance he found by being very safety first, with one of the strikers often behind the line of the ball. It is a team set up not to be open to the counter attack.

In midweek Boca made their Libertadores debut with an appalling 0-0 draw away to Zamora of Venezuela. In the dressing room afterwards there was, by all accounts, an almighty row - and it was reported that Falcioni had resigned. Peace meetings were held and Falcioni stayed. But the game against Union that you saw is perhaps a reflection of these events.

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There has always been talk of Peruvian collusion, with conspiracy theories involving shipments of grain from Argentina. Is there fire behind the smoke? It can hardly be ruled out. Little in the way of ethics could be expected of an Argentine dictatorship that was busy murdering thousands of its own citizens.

And then there is the fact that Peru had nothing to play for. Disastrous organisation meant that they had already effectively been eliminated, while Argentina knew exactly what they needed to do to reach the final - hardly the recipe for an honest contest.

But, purely in footballing terms, to ascribe the 1978 win entirely to skulduggery is surely to miss the point - because 1978 clearly represents a before-and-after moment for the Argentine national team.

After a golden age in the 1940s, Argentine football suffered badly from a self-imposed isolation in the following decade. By the time they returned to the World Cup in 1958, they were well off the pace. Poor again in 1962, they had a good team four years later, but failed to qualify for 1970 and were taken apart by the Dutch in 1974.

Since '78 it has been a different story. There have been disappointments, such as the 2002 World Cup. And there have been disastrous games, like the thrashing administered by Germany two years ago. But since 1978 they have also been a feared force, a national team with a secure place at football's top table. And that is not an achievement that can be attributed to the military dictatorship.

It has much more to do with a high-profile opponent of the regime, Cesar Luis Menotti, who coached the team to the 1978 triumph. Appointed after the '74 World Cup, Menotti kept his job even after the military coup of 1976 - one of the dictatorship's brighter decisions.

Menotti introduced two fundamental concepts. One was the idea of a genuinely national team, without the traditional domination of Buenos Aires. He scoured the provinces looking for players to feed into the process.

The other was a way of playing. It was not only Argentina the Dutch had humiliated in 1974. It was also Brazil and Uruguay. The high intensity football of the Dutch appeared to have rendered South American football obsolete. Brazil even confessed as much, attempting to copy the Dutch model in 1978.

Menotti, meanwhile, preached that traditional Argentine passing football could compete with the northern Europeans. But they had to up the rhythm of their play -
hence the importance of Osvaldo Ardiles to the team.

Ardiles was far from the peoples' choice to play in midfield. JJ Lopez was much more popular - he was an idol with Buenos Aires giants River Plate, while Ardiles, originally from Cordoba, was with the smaller Huracan club. Even Ardiles would probably have chosen Lopez over himself.

But Menotti went with Ardiles precisely because he offered more dynamism. His fetching, carrying and continuous quick passing set the pace at which the coach wanted the team to play.

Without home advantage, it is indeed possible that Ardiles and company might not have won that World Cup. But the suspicion that the military government might have pulled some strings in their favour does not detract from their virtues as a team. After all, Holland certainly did not throw the final in 1978.

The England World Cup-winning side of 1966 have also suffered from a lack of international credibility. In their case, it is argued that the English president of Fifa, Sir Stanley Rous, went out of his way to ensure a home victory, conspiracy theorists pointing above all to the famously controversial third goal in the final.

The "did it really cross the line?" debate is certainly valid. But the focus on this one incident overlooks the team's tactical virtues.

Brazil had gone with a back four in the previous decade, and discovered that if wingers were retained in that formation the team could be left light in midfield. The solution was for Mario Zagallo to shuttle back from the left wing and make the extra man, a role he played in 1958 and, to even greater effect, in 1962.

Four years later Alf Ramsey's England effectively had a Zagallo on either flank. Both Alan Ball and Martin Peters could set up goals like wingers. But they also got behind the ball when the team lost possession - defensive cover that left the side's most talented player, Bobby Charlton, free to attack.

Some 46 years later the 4-4-2 that England played continues to be the framework for many teams.

Could that England team have won the World Cup without home advantage? Maybe not, though the players argue they were at their best in away games, when they had more opportunity to launch the counter-attack.

Subsequent events also back them up. England's 1-0 defeat by Brazil in the 1970 World Cup was much more than a mere group game.

On the one hand it was a test of England's credibility away from Wembley - the game took place in the scalding midday heat of Guadalajara - and on the other it was of key importance in the context of the tournament. The winner of the group would have an easier ride to the final.

It produced a classic, one of the all-time great World Cup games. Although England lost, they could certainly have won, a point stressed to me by Zagallo, then Brazil's coach, and by a number of his players. Indeed, the Brazilians see this as the key game on their way to winning the tournament.

Even in defeat, England had won respect. They had shown that, irrespective of any real or imagined behind-the-scenes machinations, they were a team worthy of its place in football history.

The Argentina side of 1978 deserves that same respect.

Questions on South American football can be emailed to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com. From last week's postbag:

Q) How come the Boca Juniors sides of 2000-2003 aren't considered to be in the pantheon of all-time greatest teams?
Rodolfo Diaz

A) I think you've partly answered your own question when you write "sides" in the plural. If it had been one continuous team that had won the Libertadores titles of 2000, 20001 and 2003, then I certainly think they would be worthy of consideration for the pantheon. But effectively we are talking about two different teams.

The 2000-01 side was built around a spine of keeper Cordoba, centre-back Bermudez, playmaker Riquelme and centre-forward Palermo - all of whom had gone by 2003, when the title owed a lot to the explosion on to the scene of Carlos Tevez. There is not enough continuity between the two for it to be seen as part of the same evolutionary process.