Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.

Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .

Johannes Jacobus Neeskens:  15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.

Hot on the heels of the news of the death of Mario Zagallo, the first man to win the World Cup as both a player and manager, comes the death of the second, Franz Beckenbauer.

Zagallo’s playing career was a bit before my time but he won the World Cup twice as a player, in 1958 and 1962, and was at the helm when Brazil won their third World Cup in 1970. He was assistant manager for their 1994 win. This makes him the most successful footballer in World Cup history.

Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo: 9/8/1931 – 5/1/2024. So it goes.

Beckenbauer leapt into the British consciousness during the 1966 World Cup in England, where he stood out as a new type of footballer, striding about the midfield like someone playing a different game altogether. Not long after he more or less invented the role of the attacking centre back from the seeper/libero position. His control of games led to his German compatriots giving him the nickname Der Kaiser. Domestically he was the driving force behind making Bayern Munich the abiding success they are today.

In later years his reputation was tainted by allegations of corruption surrounding the securing by Germany of the hosting of the 2006 World Cup but it his achievements on the pitch which will be his legacy.

Franz Anton Beckenbauer: 11/9/1945 – 7/1/2024. So it goes.

Two well-known Scots have gone recently.

Winnie Ewing, who died last week, will go down in Scottish political history as the person who brought the prospect of Scottish independence into mainstream politics. Her win in the Hamilton by-election in 1967 shattered the hegemony of unionism, made more likely the election of future SNP members to Parliament and indirectly led to devolution and the re-introduction of a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Winifred Margaret Ewing: 10/7/1929 – 21/6/2023. So it goes.

Craig Brown left us on Monday. His biggest impact on Scottish life came through his appointment as manager of the Scotland football team in 1993. He led the side to two major tournaments and was the last Scotland manager to steer the side to World Cup qualification, 1998 in France, where the team played Brazil in the opening game. His 71 games in charge overall is still the record.

James Craig Brown: 1/7/940 – 26/6/2023. So it goes.

I’m sad to note the death of Paolo Rossi, who was in effect the prototypical Italian striker, arguably the best ever such.

There is an argument to be made about whether one man can be said to have won a World Cup for his country, the usual example given being Diego Maradona.

However it is almost certain that without Paolo Rossi, Italy would not have won the World Cup in 1982. His contribution to that success was profound – and indispensible.

He had only recently come back from a two year ban resulting from the Totonero betting scandal (in which he said he was unjustly implicated,) and had endured, as did his team-mates to be fair, a non-descript start to the 1982 tournament. But his hat-trick buried an extremely talented Brazil side in what was effectively a knock-out game in the second phase in one of the best-ever World Cup matches. Was there ever such a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles as in his third in that game?

Italy 3-2 Brazil:-

Rossi then scored the two goals which defeated Poland in the semi-final and set Italy on their way to the Cup with the first in the final against West Germany – a goal which he said most exemplified his style in anticipating where the ball would be before the defender could react in time.

Six goals, the Golden Boot, and Golden Ball for most valuable player, with the 1982 Ballon D’Or added in for good measure.

All six goals:-

In his career he had multiple Italian domestic trophies, and all but the EUFA Cup in European competition. One of the greats.

Paolo Rossi: 23/9/1956 – 9/12/2020. So it goes.

More pictures taken at the National Museum of Flight, East Fortune Airfield, East Lothian, Scotland.

A Czech S-103:-

Lockheed Lightning. I forget which country’s livery this displays:-

The obligatory Spitfire:-

Messerschmidt Komet. This was a rocket propelled aeroplane as I recall:-

Vulcan Bomber:-

The images of two bombs/missiles under Argentine flags on the fuselage of the Vulcan signal the two raids made by this bomber on the Argentinian forces at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands during the conflict in 1982. The flag of Brazil is because the Vulcan was forced to detour by engine trouble and land in Brazil after one of the raids.

Hawker Harrier:-

You may have noticed there’s a rather large and important football competition taking place at the moment. (A swift glance at TV schedules would be enough to tell you that.)

Four years ago I expressed my fear that a period of Germanic hegemony was upon us. Notwithstanding Portugal’s efforts at the last European Championships the young German side which triumphed at last year’s Confederations Cup boded well (or ill, according to view) for that prospect.

It seems that hegemony is not to be. In three performances of stunning inadequacy Germany have been so poor as to finish bottom of their group, only a moment of individual brilliance on the part of Toni Kroos yielding them a solitary win over Sweden.

It’s been a topsy-turvy sort of tournament what with England playing well (so far) and Argentina, like the Germans, struggling badly – but still managing to reach the second round.

I’ve not been overly impressed by anyone – though I thought Colombia looked good against Poland. But that may have been because the Poles were totally ineffective.

Brazil seem unbalanced to me; too much in thrall to their star player, Neymar, who doesn’t look fully fit. Belgium may be dark horses but haven’t played anybody of standing yet.

Judgement must be reserved till the knockout games. Too often before, a good showing in the group has unravelled at the next step.

But… Could this be Uruguay’s year again? They’re the only side yet to concede a goal.

(Cue a Portugal win on Saturday.)

faber and faber, 2012, 758 p. Translated from the Spanish La guerra del fin del mundo with no translator’s name given, merely a translation copyright notice for the book’s first US publisher. Returned to a threatened library.

An itinerant mystic, Antonio Conselheiro, called the Counsellor, wanders the Brazilian province of Bahia gathering adherents. He preaches against the recently formed Republic of Brazil as the Antichrist, stuffed with Freemasons. In Llosa’s account he has the ability to transform an assortment of unfortunates, misfits, and the misshapen – not to mention the worst of bandits – into followers of the Blessed Jesus (whose every mention among the Counsellor’s adherents is replied to with “Blessed be he”.) Eventually he sets up a community in the town of Canudos against which a succession of ever larger military expeditions is sent by the Republic as the “rebellion” defeats each in turn. All this is based on a historical event, the War of Canudos, the most bloody civil war in Brazil’s history.

The early part of the novel is taken up with sections relating to how some of the Counsellor’s most important followers come to fall under his spell interspersed with the machinations of local politicians in Bahia – both for and against the Republic. Here we also meet a socialist (and red-haired) Scotsman on the run from authorities in Europe – where he had indulged in seditious activities – who goes by the name of Galileo Gall (but whose real name is never given) and has a belief in phrenology. Gall is framed by the editor of the Jornal de Notícias, Epaminondas Gonçalves, to make it look as though Britain, referred to by most characters as England, is involved in gun-running to, and support of, the rebels of Canudos. (“Gall” does put Gonçalves right, though, when he says, “I’m a Scotsman. I hate the English.”) A near-sighted journalist – again nameless – goes along with the third military force to be sent against the rebels and witnesses most of the later fighting; at least until his spectacles get broken.

Entrants to Canudos were made to swear that they were not Republicans, did not accept the expulsion of the Emperor, nor the separation of Church and State, nor civil marriage, nor the new system of weight and measures, nor the census questions. (The devil is obviously in the way you count the spoons.) Mostly though, the Counsellor was playing on the faith of the poor and their fears that slavery would be reintroduced.

Gall thinks of Canudos as, “A libertarian citadel, without money, without masters, without politics, without priests, without bankers, without landowners, a world built with the faith and the blood of the poorest of the poor,” (though part of that is his own idealism projected onto it) and wonders about the – to him – curious code of “Honour, vengeance, that rigorous religion, those punctilious codes of conduct….. a vow, a man’s word, those luxuries and games of rich, or idlers and parasites – how to understand their existence here?” that so prevailed on the husband of a woman he raped that he pursued Gall there.

About a third of the way through the book we find the nameless journalist has survived the war as he talks to the Baron de Canabrava about his experiences. This has the effect of defusing some of the tension as we readers are still to meet them for ourselves.

In Canudos the near-sighted journalist thought to himself, ‘culture, knowledge were lies, dead weight, blindfolds. All that reading – and it had been of no use whatsoever in helping him to escape.’ The baron is disgusted by the journalist finding amid the chaos of Canudos love and pleasure with a peasant girl. “Did those words not call to mind luxury, refinement, sensibility, elegance, the rites and the ripe wisdom of an imagination nourished by wide reading, travels, education?”

Army doctor Teotônio Leal Cavalcanti’s image of humanity abruptly darkened in his weeks seeing to the wounded during the siege, observing of the able-bodied, “‘It is not what is most sublime, but what is most sordid and abject, the hunger for filthy lucre, greed, that is aroused in the presence of death.’”

The novel feels like it has a cast of thousands. There are multiple viewpoint characters and a narrative which shifts from present to past tense and back in section to section. This makes for a dry and slow start as the life stories of the Counsellor’s adherents prior to their falling in with him and those of the politicians of Bahia are told to us rather than shown. But, as the near-sighted journalist tells Baron de Canabrava, “‘Canudos isn’t a story; it’s a tree of stories.’” In telling his tale, Llosa tries to encompass this world of many branches. Some characters return again and again, others only appear in the scene in which we are given their viewpoint. 758 pages are a lot to fill after all. At times it becomes almost too much; but to recount a tree of stories does require length, a length which adds to the impression that this is a very male book. After all, war and revolution attract a certain kind of attention and are accorded an importance that other aspects of human endeavour are not.

Nearly all human life is in The War of the End of the World. Nearly all.

Aside:- In the scenes dealing with military men there are several references to Brazil’s war with Paraguay, which took place in the days of the Brazilian Empire. In Colin Wilson’s history of the goalkeeper, The Outsider, he stated that Brazil had never fought a war. That would be the Brazilian Republic rather than “Brazil” then.

Pedant’s corner:- The translation is into USian but curiously we had “fitted” once and “trousers” twice. Otherwise there were Jesus’ (Jesus’s,) “the Scotsman thought to himself: ‘The Republic has as little strength in Bahia as the King of England beyond the Aberfoyle Pass in the days of Rob Roy Macgregor.’” (The King of England? At that time the King was King of Scotland too. And it’s MacGregor.) “A host of questions were running riot in his head” (a host was,) laughingstock (laughing stock,) rear guard (the military terminology is usually rearguard,) ipso facto is used in the sense of “immediately” (it actually means “as a result of that fact”,) “a group of servants were” (a group was,) dumfounded (I prefer dumbfounded.) “They finally learn a little about what was gone on” (has gone on,) “he’s just dying little little, second by second” (little by little,) sunk (sank,) in a cross fire (crossfire,) chasseurs were mowed down (mowed down appeared at least twice; is this USian? In English it’s mown down.) Quite a few instances of “time interval” later.

I was sorry to hear today of the death of Jimmy Hill and especially that he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

As a player he was relatively undistingusihed (or is that perception of mine just because he played before football became plastered all over the TV?) but as chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association he was instrumental in having the cap on footballers’ wages removed in 1961, leading to today’s high salaries in the upper echelons. As a manager he brought Coventry City up two divisions before leaving for a career in TV.

As a pundit he was always worth listening to but famously annoyed Scottish football fans by describing David Narey’s goal against Brazil at the 1982 Word Cup as a “toe-poke.” Both sides played up to the supposed antipathy his remark engendered but in reality he got on very well with any Scottish fans he encountered.

James William Thomas “Jimmy” Hill: 22/7/1928 – 19/12/2015. So it goes.

So. There is to be no redemption. Brazil’s historical trauma of the Maracanã in 1950 known as the Maracanazo has been surpassed. Will this one become known as the Mineirãoza?

The country of Brazil has never been involved in a war (except, perhaps, internally.)* The national consciousness has been invested in football. The 1950 defeat was akin to a national humiliation. How much worse, then, a 7-1 hammering by a team who had never beaten them in a competitive game? And a first home defeat in competition for 29 years.

It’s been coming, though. They weren’t convincing in the group games, Chile pushed them close in the second round and Colombia didn’t deserve to lose to them either. Both those sides perhaps had too much history with Brazil to overcome. (And the hoo-hah over Neymar’s injury is over-confected. Brazil spent most of the Colombia game kicking “Oor Hamish” – James Rodriguez – all over the park. Given the outcome of the semi-final the real loss was in fact Thiago Silva.) The Germans didn’t care about reputations or history; they did what German teams do.

Brazil’s scapegoat in 1950 (“Look! There’s the man that made all Brazil cry!”) was Moacyr Barbosa. At least this time they can’t blame it on a black goalkeeper.

Make the most of the last few days of this Brazil-hosted World Cup. I doubt there will be another one.

*Edited to add. I have since found out that not being involved in a war is only true of the Brazilian Republic and not of the Empire which preceded it. The Republic has had internal conflicts.

FIFA World Cup Qualifier: Europe, Group A, Hampden Park, 6/9/13.

Nobody really expected Scotland to get a result out of this and so it transpired.

I only saw the highlights and it looked as if Belgium did not have to reach top gear. Even so, Scotland did well to restrict them to as few attempts on goal as they got.

Belgium are an impressive side. Whether they are impressive enough to go all the way in Brazil next year is another matter.

Bottom of the group again. With only two games left we really need a win on Tuesday in Macedonia to have any hope of avoiding that spot at the end of the qualifiers.