If we can just stay within 12 goals…
Cheer up, Luxembourg. Your team might have been trounced by Germany 7-0 on Saturday, but at least you didn’t let in 13 goals. That honor goes to the under-20 team of Brazilian club Fluminense, which lost to Brazil 13-1 on Sunday in an exhibition match in Switzerland. The man of the match has to be the kid who scored the goal for Fluminense. He broke through the Brazil defense like a blonde woman looking for a hug.
The score of the match kind of reminds me of the Harlem Globetrotters, who seemingly always destroyed the loveably overmatched Washington Generals. In the end you would walk away feeling good about the Globetrotters, while not remembering a damn thing about the Generals.
It is interesting to observe how the various teams approach the run up to the World Cup. Some of the teams like Ukraine and Saudi Arabia have scheduled a lot of exhibition matches to get their players used to playing against differing styles. That makes sense to me.
A team like Angola is playing Argentina, the United States and Turkey to help their inexperienced players to learn on the fly before they begin play in Germany. That makes sense to me too.
Other teams like Brazil and Argentina will only play one or two friendlies, opting to do the bulk of training in practice while giving their players a bit of a rest after a long season of club competitions. Indeed, that makes sense to me as well.
Time for a bit of a confession on my part. I did once take part on a game in which my team was on the losing end of a 14-3 score. We didn’t play against Brazil, but the opposing team was the Harlem Globetrotters of my U-8 league. Our keeper still has whiplash from letting in that many goals.
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Comments
By Trent | May 28th, 2006 at 6:50 pm 
“He broke through the Brazil defense like a blonde woman looking for a hug.” The comment of the week, to be sure.
Following this many friendlies got me wondering what approach is the best. I guess I’ll just wait to see the results of the World Cup, reverse engineer my thesis, and pretend that it’s meaningful. That’s the plan, anyway.
By walter | May 28th, 2006 at 7:41 pm What’s the point of scoring 13 goals? It’s not like Brazil needs a confidence boost.
By zé | May 28th, 2006 at 8:30 pm Well, it was a training match. Both the teams weren’t playing too hard, so probably the defence for the sub-20 team didn’t want to try and break the leg of a brazilian national team player. You can say from the game that they were interested more in playing than in scoring goals. Sure, they did score, but an elastic score like that is pretty common on training matches.
Also, they’re a sub-20 team.
I have to confess I’m a bit worried with this approach to training too though. I feel the team will get to the world cup feeling a bit ‘cold’, while other teams will be ‘hot’ from so many real friendlies. I mean, look at croatia, two average+ friendlies in one week.
Here’s to hope it turns out ok for Brazil.
Posted from 
Brazil
By fab | May 28th, 2006 at 9:47 pm hahahah you the funniest man
you should be a comedian when i read this i laughed my ass off thanks
Posted from 
Canada
By Abraham | May 29th, 2006 at 3:35 am Anyone knows who are the scores for brasil
Posted from 
Singapore
By Euler | May 29th, 2006 at 6:08 am It was cool to watch. At the beginning I was worried, but I would have a hart attack if some defender would go for Ronaldinho’s legs. I would be satisfied if our team A would only play against our team B. Or Fluminense under 20 team. The kids did a good job not hurting our team. It was a nice practice.
By zé | May 29th, 2006 at 8:06 am Abraham: first half was with the main squad, they won 5-1: Ronaldo, Adriano, Kaká, Cafu, Ronaldinho.
Second half was with the second squad, who won 8-0: Robinho (4), Fred, Juninho Pernambucano, Ricardinho (hm, I don’t know who scored the remaining goal).
Posted from Brazil
By prastuh | May 29th, 2006 at 10:52 am HEY THEY MIGHT HAVE JUST DONE TO BOOST BRASILS CONFIDENCE OTHERWISE THEY HOW CAN THEY ASK THEIR MAIN TEAM TO ENTER WORLD CUP PLAYING SLUGGISHLY TO A U 20 TEAM ??????THE POINT NOW IS NOT THAT BRASIL SCORE 13 BUT THE WORRY IS THEY HAVE CONCEDED 1 GOAL TO AN U20 TEAM TIME FOR BRASIL TO RETROINSPECT THEIR DEFENSE BEFORE THE BIG ONE TAKES OFF
Posted from 
India
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