Brazil end a fantastic adventure

A night of lovely madness with some method and five goals in it. Denmark go home after an evening of furious poetry in Nantes but they bring with them some ripping yarns and a bundle of goodwill.

Brazil, chain-smoking and fidgety, get through to the last four. Relief was their overwhelming emotion.

"In the end we deserved it," said full back Cafu who took a second yellow card and will miss the semi-final. "We managed to get the game back. It was a match which told us about the spirit of our team. We needed to know about it."

Here's how it went down. One minute gone and the Danes made a pretty picture of a goal. A freekick on the left of the area was conspired over by Peter Moller and Brian Laudrup. Moller finally flicked it on. Laudrup zipped into the penalty area with mesmeric speed and cut the ball back into the path of Martin Jorgensen.

The newest Danish star deposited it in the back of the net as if scoring World Cup goals against Brazil was a minor part of his daily routine.

So suddenly there was Danish barrel-housing in La Beaujoire and as the merriment grew nobody noticed the Brazilians slipping into their party clothes.

Little hints of their intent perhaps. Roberto Carlos thumped one at Peter Schmeichel on five minutes but it was scarcely chilling enough to get Schmeichel's nose red. So what. The Brazilians don't serve warnings of intent. They just execute. Ten minutes down and Ronaldo slipped a nonchalant pass into space like a kid playing ball at an airport. Bebeto knew the script, took the gift in his stride and scored with Thomas Helveg just beginning to breathe down his neck.

The Brazilians were having a sweet spell now with the stands swaying gently like fields of appreciative sunflowers. Dunga was stamping his rude authority all over the midfield and the full backs, Roberto Carlos and Cafu, were scampering like mice who have just heard that the cat has been called away.

The feel-good stuff paid out in hard currency for Brazil in the 26th minute. Ronaldo (he's not bad actually) produced some impish sorcery on the edge of the Danish area. While he was dancing Rivaldo was steaming past on the left. Ronaldo laid the ball out on his tracks. Rivaldo judged his chip over Schmeichel with geometric perfection. And so Denmark's early goal was almost wiped from the memory.

If it looked at times just then as if the Danes were about to be humiliated it would have been less than they deserved. Jorgensen was full of bright ideas on the right wing and Michael Laudrup explored similar themes down the left.

The Danes have grown into this competition as it has gone along, finding their enthusiasm and their flair when it mattered most. Their prosaic early form was left behind as the occasions got bigger and last night when they got up off the floor after the second Brazilian goal it was the Danes who played with the fluency of kids on the Copacabana.

They introduced Stig Tofting at half-time and he boomed one over the bar by way of a calling card when the game resumed.

Brazil were a little alarmed by the temerity of it all and when the equalising goal came just four minutes into the half it was a cruel undressing of Brazilian frailties.

A loose ball hopping harmlessly on the edge of the Brazilian penalty area was never evacuated to safety and instead, oh solecism, was allowed balloon back across the area in front of goal. Roberto Carlos contributed a memorable touch. His bicycle kick caught nothing but fresh air and Brian Laudrup, loitering alongside him, suppressed his giggles until he had tucked the ball away.

Two apiece and the light sagging in the Brazilian shoulders suggested it was going to be a long night. A little flag fluttered at the town end. It's Just Like Watching Barnsley.

The Danes swelled with confidence. The Brazilians grew in desperation. Suddenly it was helter skelter, end-to-end stuff and devil take the hindmost, the teams surging all over the place as if some crazy editor had spliced all the highlights into one 10-minute sequence.

Ronaldo tried to weave through the massed Danes. No dice. Jorgensen fed Moller with a great cross. Aldair intervened. Rivaldo scooted in, cut back but normal service still hadn't resumed with Roberto Carlos.

Both defences were looking leaky and another goal seemed as inevitable as rain from a swirling sky. So it proved. Fifteen minutes into the half Rivaldo picked up a stray ball on Danish land. He was unchallenged for the first five yards of his progress by which time he had made up his mind. He skimmed a daisy cutter to the far corner, tantalisingly out of Schmeichel's reach. This was the stuff of World Cup daydreams.

Denmark wouldn't lie down, just wouldn't go gently into that dark night. They carved out a couple more clearcut chances which luck might have made goals of. With 13 minutes left Helveg switched a pass for Brian Laudrup. Just wide. Four minutes left and Soren Colding crossed from the right and Marc Rieper, high as a crane, headed firmly off the Brazilian bar.

His was the last significant act of a soaring night. The Danes, brave till the end, took the garlands along with their conquerors.

Brazil manager Mario Zagallo said: "It was a hard game for us because Denmark put up a real fight tonight. It was a victory by a team that wanted to win against very fierce opposition. It was a match that showed the way football should be played. Denmark could just as easily have won 3-2 but we gave everything to win. I'm almost as tired as the players."

Bo Johansson, Denmark's manager, said: "I thought my team's performance was fantastic. Almost as good as the best team in the world. I thought we were a good team but I didn't know we were this good. It has been a fantastic adventure."

Amen to that.