Optimism - guest writer ANDY GOLD

My host holds up seven fingers and then bends three down as the full time whistle blows on Brazil’s final group F game. Four fingers remain, counting the four games to go. And he clearly thinks winning a sixth title is as straightforward as that. Another friend has just invited the assembled crowd to come and watch the quarter-final at her apartment building next Saturday. “I’ve booked the communal barbecue area, kick off is at 4 o’ clock so we can eat before the game.” I am aghast. Truly open-mouthed with shock at such awe-inspiring, superstition free, confidence. Brazil still needs to navigate past Ghana in the second round. I could never plan so far ahead with England, allow myself to be so presumptuous and cocky. In my mind I would so obviously be jinxing the team. Bitter experience with England has taught me to fear each game. The Brazilian experience is that you need only fear not having somewhere good to watch the business end of the tournament. England and Brazil have been remarkably similar in this World Cup so far. Both have talented players, who have produced results without really impressing and when they have played some attractive football it has been offset by displays of defensive ineptitude. If I’d just seen the less than heavyweight Japanese strike force score against England and carve out other chances I’d already be resigned to the fact that once again this is not our year. But none of my Brazilian companions are the least bit perturbed as an eventually comfortable win unfolds. The summit is getting closer and the mood is euphoric like mountain climbers starved of oxygen my Brazilians friends are looking upwards and onwards giddily. Win one more game, bend one more finger down, and Brazil is over halfway to lifting the Cup again. When you’ve climbed a mountain five times before it all seems so much more surmountable. You see no reason why you should slip and fall within sight of the peak. In England hidden crevasses and crushing rock falls are being predicted everywhere. In the last week I have read and heard complete nonsense from usually intelligent English broadsheet journalists, including suggestions that Ecuador’s mighty ‘Clockwork Banana,’ (as they are being humorously dubbed by the Quito press in an ode to the Dutch Clockwork Orange teams of ’74 and ’78,) will be too strong for England, and that Portugal and Mexico’s level of creativity has been far more impressive than that of David Beckham’s men. Fortunately I have been able to find a more measured assessment of England’s chances in the Brazilian press and have not joined my countrymen rocking back and forth quietly in a fit of manic pessimism. “Of course we’re worried as well” my girlfriend explains as we plough home through a sea of flag-waving cars, tunefully honking horns in celebration. “But when we won in 1994, we had Tafferel in goal. If a team can overcome that, well then anything is possible.” “This time the first choice full backs don’t have enough energy to run back and defend after they’ve run forwards to attack. Dida is useless and Ronaldo is just standing around, like Romario did back in ‘94, leaving all the hard work to everyone else. But it doesn’t matter this team can find a way to win four more matches.” We stop at traffic lights under the archetypal grim concrete São Paulo overpass. A young man jumps out of the car behind us and does a flag-waving dance around his car. Four lanes of traffic appreciatively salute, by manically pounding their horns before the lights change and break up the party. “Hexa-campeão, hexa-campeão” he shouts. It’s as easy as counting to seven on your fingers.