Inter-continental football games

The Brazilian national anthem is clearly a marching beat that pungently suits the victory-seeking spirit motivating international football games like the one played by the Brazilian team against the Chilean team in World Cup'98, as televised on TPI, Jakarta at midnight of June 28. Watching the tense facial expressions, the spectators could gain an insight into the pride and the sense of challenge that filled the minds of the players, as they solemnly sang together accompanied by the brass band.

Although Chile lost the game 1-4 to Brazil, the Chilean team played a splendid game. Only its keeper looked too nervous when confronting the lightning attacks launched by world-class players like Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Sampaio of Brazil.

The Brazil-Chile game in World Cup'98 fitly demonstrated a representative piece of Latin American football, which shows unique characteristic features different from those of European football, as exhibited by the Italy-Norway game.

If I remember well from my high school memories in Dutch times (the pre-independence period), a football match was played between a West European team and an East European team in 1938. I can't remember the city where it was played. The striker of the West European team was a Dutchman, Bakhuis, who hailed from the Dutch municipal soccer league of Surabaya, East Java. The match was won 3-1 by the East European team. The goal scored by the West European team was by Bakhuis.

Although it may sound utopian, it would be an attractive world sport event, if the 21st century sometime could witness the realization of soccer games played between continental teams, like the West European, East European, North and Central American, South American, Arab, African and Asian teams. Imagine how attractive an African continental team, or for that matter a Latin American team or a European team, would appear, as they would include world-class players from the national teams of the member countries.

If before World War II, a football match could be played between the West European team and the East European team, why should similar matches be held utopian, if besides the existing national teams competing in the World Cup games continental teams are set up to compete in intercontinental world games. What's more, it would contribute to enriching world tourism. Billionaires should be available to help finance such intercontinental football games become a reality sometime in the forthcoming century.

After indulging in such hallucinations, at the end of the World Cup games on the TV channel, again the viewer began to listen to the incessant TV news reports that transmitted the realities of the current economic crisis and of the soaring prices of staple foodstuffs. Actually, we viewers are anxious to listen to more agreeable news for a change, which we feel entitled to as good citizens.

S. SUHAEDI

Jakarta