Ronaldo `fit' solves selection riddle but fall-out continues

The controversy surrounding Ronaldo's omission from Brazil's team-sheet, posted by FIFA prior to Sunday's World Cup Final, was cleared yesterday by the player himself who confessed that he had suffered "a fit" the night before the match.

According to Brazilian television, Ronaldo had gone into "convulsions" during the night and his room-mate, Roberto Carlos, had run into the corridor shouting for a doctor.

"I don't remember properly, but I went to sleep and then, like the doctor said, it seems I had a fit for 30 or 40 seconds," the Brazil and Inter Milan striker admitted. "I woke up and my whole body was in pain. But with time the pain got less and I relaxed a bit."

Ronaldo was later taken to hospital where he underwent electrosonograph and electrocardiograph tests, which, according to Brazil team doctor Lidio Toledo, revealed nothing physical.

"His illness was due to stress," said Toledo.

Whatever the veracity of the explanation, it is clear that the malaise that affected Ronaldo's final performance was more mental than the physical knocks which had initially been mooted for his startling absence from coach Mario Zagallo's initial team sheet.

Indeed, prior to kick-off strike partner, Bebeto, had said that the team was "very worried about his condition and the way he was thinking".

Zagallo, too, was apparently concerned with Ronaldo's health and on the first team sheet, printed at 19.48, one hour and 12 minutes ahead of kick-off, Ronaldo was named in the list of substitutes, with Edmundo taking the 21-year-old's place.

This list was the first to be issued to journalists, soon after 8 p.m., and was greeted with general astonishment. Unofficially, journalists were told that Ronaldo was suffering from the effects of an ankle injury picked up in the semifinal against Holland.

Soon, however, stories began circulating that Ronaldo would be included after all. And the second list, printed at 20.18, contained his name, with Edmundo back among the substitutes.

Clearly, the incident had a dramatic effect on the Brazil dressing room, as the entire team then failed to appear for their usually elaborate warm-up routine before kick-off, a remarkable break with standard practice.

The France team completed their exercises and left the pitch. With five minutes to go, both teams came out of the tunnel together and lined up for the national anthems, with Ronaldo in his usual place at the end of the Brazil line.

Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes without ever resembling the world's most feared striker. Uncharacteristically ponderous on the turn and slow to strike, he forced France's goalkeeper Fabien Barthez to saves in the 21st and 55th minutes, and needed treatment after a heavy collision with Barthez after half an hour, but in general his efforts were smothered by the home defence with an ease which surprised onlookers. Around Ronaldo, his team-mates appeared ill at ease and out of sorts with each other.

Before the match had long been over, stories were emerging from the Brazilian camp. Zagallo was said to have fretted long over Ronaldo's condition, eventually making up his mind to leave him out at around 5pm, and informing Edmundo of his inclusion. At the team meeting, he told the shocked players of his decision, and reminded them of the example of the 1962 Brazil team, which lost Pele, their 21-year-old star, early in the tournament, but went on to win the trophy. Zagallo had been a member of that team.

But then, according to a first report in the Rio daily newspaper O Globo, matters were taken out of Zagallo's hands. According to their report, the coach's selection was countermanded by Ricardo Teixeira, the controversial president of the CBF, the Brazilian football federation.

The CBF president is said to have told the backroom team that he would take personal responsibility for Ronaldo's inclusion.

Teixeira, the son-in-law of Joao Havelange, the outgoing president of FIFA, is said to have reacted to the news of Ronaldo's omission by going to the dressing-room and calling an emergency meeting of the squad's management staff. His nephew, the CBF's general secretary Marco Antonio Teixeira; Zagallo, the coach; Zico, the special co-ordinator; Toledo, the doctor; and Americo Faria, the supervisor. All were told that Ronaldo had to play.

In the face of their objections, the CBF president is said to have told them that he would take personal responsibility for Ronaldo's inclusion. And by this time, according to O Globo, Ronaldo had indicated that he wanted to play.

Another Brazilian daily, O Folho, quoted the Brazil full-back Roberto Carlos as saying that his room-mate, feeling unwell, had suddenly run out of the room at 20 past four in the afternoon to call a doctor. "It was as if a malaise had come over him. Not even he knew what was wrong," Roberto Carlos said. "He had been in tears in the night, and in the afternoon he went yellower than our shirts."

His statement about Ronaldo running into the corridor calling for medical attention seems at odds with the later story of the defender calling for a doctor to treat the `convulsing' Ronaldo but the inference is the same. The striker was in a fragile state of mind and clearly suffering badly.

"Here was a 21-year-old player, the best player in the world, surrounded by contracts and pressure," Roberto Carlos said. "It was as if this was always going to happen to him. Something had to give. And when it did, it happened to be the day of the World Cup final."

Roberto Carlos's remarks may have been a reference to the £60 million 10-year deal signed by the CBF president with Nike, widely criticised - not least by Dunga, the captain - for the control it gives the US sports-goods company over where and when the team plays their friendly matches. As the team's most charismatic figure, Ronaldo is inevitably the focus of Nike's marketing campaigns.

Throughout the tournament, questions had been asked about the state of Ronaldo's knees and about his weight, which was alleged to be higher than usual. His early performances were not of the standard expected, and he was thought to be saving himself for the final stages.

But a pair of goals against Chile and two remarkable passes to create goals for Rivaldo and Bebeto in the match against Denmark, which Brazil won 3-2 after going behind, appeared to indicate that all would be well.

Ronaldo's absence from the squad's training sessions on Thursday and Friday were officially blamed on the ankle injury, although some suspected that this was a smoke screen to disguise his continuing problems with tendinitis in both knees.

If any conclusion is to be drawn from the events of Sunday, it is not that Brazil were undone by the under-performance of a starstriker succumbing to a bout of nerves, but that they were undone by the incredible pressure to succeed that had been thrust on a young athlete's shoulders by an entire nation, by a world football public hungry for an idol who would light up the competition the way Pele, Cruyff and Maradona had done in tournaments gone by, and finally by corporate sponsors who vicariously forced the hand of Brazil's officials and included an unfit and suffering player in a match, which, if lost, would inevitably result in the heaping of opprobrium on yet another `wasted and waning wunderkind'. Brazil lost and the pressure on Ronaldo continues to grow.