1997 was a good time to be a young bloke looking to break into the big, bad world of football writing. Somehow I had lasted a year on the Sunday Telegraph sports desk. A week’s work experience, starting on the very day England lost on penalties to Germany at Euro ’96, turned into another week and so on. I did not know shorthand, had no journalistic training, and was completely winging it. I ended up staying for five years.
This was in the days when the internet was in its infancy – people actually used to buy newspapers – and if you wanted to work in sports journalism, the Telegraph was highly regarded. The sports editor, Colin Gibson, was a former chief football writer, and he knew everyone. Rumour has it that Sepp Blatter once held up a UEFA press conference as Colin was late in arriving: “Ve vill vait for Mister Big”. Colin was a big fella, as was the main football writer, Paddy Barclay, and they both constantly gave me advice and contacts. I felt I learned far more under those two than I could from any university degree.
Football-wise, the close season in 1997 was pretty quiet. The only action of note was in France where Le Tournoi was taking place, a warm-up for the World Cup a year later. Remember that free kick Roberto Carlos smacked in from nearly 40 yards against Fabien Barthez? That was at Le Tournoi.
At the time Brazil were the World Champions, and their team oozed class. After the tournament, they were off to Bolivia for the Copa America. I looked at the schedule. No-one was covering it for the Telegraph. I asked Colin that, if I offered to pay some of my expenses, was there any way I could go out there for a month. Mr Big said yes.
I couldn’t believe my luck. Conmebol were faxed for accreditation and off I was to Madrid, then Buenos Aires, and then La Paz, the capital of Bolivia and the host city. Roberto Carlos, Denilson, Leonardo – all of these fantastic players I was about to see – in South America too, I couldn’t wait. But the player I wanted to watch more than any other was Ronaldo. The original.
During the 1996-97 season, Sky Sports had the rights to La Liga as they do now. Barcelona were coached, for just the one season, by a man who years later would ‘ask’ me to write all of his after dinner speeches, Sir Bobby Robson. I believe he was just ‘Bobby’ back then.
One of Bobby’s first tasks on replacing Johan Cruyff as coach was signing a forward. Rather than Alan Shearer or other household names of the time, he plumped for a young Brazilian tearing up the Dutch league with PSV. Ronaldo, in his one and only season at the Camp Nou at the age of 20, scored 47 goals in 49 games. He was dubbed ‘The Phenomenon’, and they weren’t wrong.
So, off I went to live the dream. But between Buenos Aires and La Paz, all of my luggage went missing. After a day or so trying to get some sense out of the hotel manager, I mentioned I was there to cover the football. So impressed was he with this English kid making the effort to cover what was a big deal for Bolivia, he eventually picked up the phone. Within a few hours, my luggage and I were reacquainted.
For anyone who has not been to La Paz, a warning. Walk slowly, very slowly. On my first day, trying to get hold of my hallowed laminated press badge was far from easy. The language barrier didn’t help. No-one spoke English.
Feeling a tad whoozy, I looked in the mirror. My lips were blueish, they didn’t look right to me and I felt terrible. A kindly English girl in my hotel confirmed I had altitude sickness. La Paz is nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. I prescribed myself with the best medicine in the situation: the local beer. Plus I was told to chew cocoa leaves and take taxis everywhere. Bingo.
It was finally time for business: I was here to watch Brazil, after all. I flew to Santa Cruz where Brazil were playing most of their group games. Funny place, Santa Cruz. It was a very dusty town, dominated by gleaming Mercedes and dodgy geezers. The Bolivian ‘marching powder’ trade was flourishing in Santa Cruz and yes, in case you were wondering, it is very strong indeed.
Costa Rica, an invited team, were Brazil’s opening opponents. Brazil were 5-0 up before an hour when a familiar pattern emerged: Ronaldo, who scored twice, tended to be substituted as soon as the result was safe. Even then there were clearly concerns regarding his fitness.
As soon as he was replaced, he would simply sit on the sidelines staring intently at his mobile phone, always looking stressed. Little did I know that after the tournament he would leave Barcelona to join Internazionale for a world record 27 million dollars. He rarely looked happy though. Not until hours after the games had passed, that is.
Covering Brazil in South America is a very different experience. For a start, I spent the whole month sitting with the Brazilian TV and radio guys, the ones that holler ‘Goooooooooooaaaaaaaaaallllllll’ for 90-odd seconds at a time. I found out later I was supposed to sit with the written journalists but this was more my cup of coca tea and, as I say, no-one spoke English so I didn’t know any different.
Despite the language barriers I got on with the Brazilian radio lads. We were staying in the same hotel and they called me ‘Ingles’ or ‘Gringo’. After the first game they made a gesture recognisable to all journalists across the globe: lifting an invisible glass to the mouth, with a raise of both eyebrows, they were going for a beer and I should join. Rude not to, really.
Bars and clubs in Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, and other Bolivian cities all followed a familiar theme. Until 11-12pm things are fairly normal. People eat, drink, there are kids playing around. But after midnight a different theme emerges. What seemed to be a fairly innocuous drinking den became more of a nightclub. More of a nightclub with girls wearing less and less clothing. And doing crazy shit on stage with massive snakes. We didn’t use to get this at the Hammersmith Palais, I can assure you.
So there I am at 2am in this very odd Bolivian nightclub, in the middle of nowhere, wondering how the hell I will make it back to my hotel. Wondering what the name of my hotel was. Still the drink flowed and more girls danced, in all sorts of outrageous mannerisms. When one brought the snake out, I burst out laughing. The three blokes next to me were in agreement, falling to the floor in hysterics. It was then that I looked a little closer and saw they were all wearing the same Nike tracksuits.
Slowly, I realised I was sitting next to Ronaldo, Denilson and Flávio Conceição. I clocked Ronaldo again later as I staggered out the bar, counting at least three girls on his lap. Suddenly he didn’t look so stressed.
I would like to say this was an isolated incident, a one-off, but no. I followed all but one of Brazil’s games (missed due to an exceptional ‘headache’/’altitude sickness’/hangover) and the same pattern emerged. Bar became club, club became dodgy club, Brazil national team would turn up, and Ronaldo would be flattened by gorgeous Bolivian ladies of all sizes and shapes. The boy was relentless.
None of this did him any harm on the pitch. Brazil breezed through the group stages with Mexico the only side offering any resistance, taking a 2-0 lead through a Luis Hernandez brace before the big boys woke up. Leonardo, formerly of Milan and PSG, eventually sealed a 3-2 victory after running off the pitch to steal the ball on the touchline from a Mexican defender, cutting past two defenders and comfortably beating the keeper. Please watch on YouTube (start at 1 hr. 34 mins).
For the final, back in La Paz, Brazil faced the hosts Bolivia. No-one fancied Bolivia but the altitude always gave them the upper hand over unwitting opposition. Brazil took the rare step of flying into the capital shortly before the game and literally played at walking pace, winning 3-1 without breaking sweat.
Mario Zagallo, the coach, decided to pair Ronaldo with Edmundo rather than Romario. Edmundo, if you remember, was a very naughty chap. One of his greatest claims to fame was being accused by animal welfare groups for getting a chimpanzee drunk on whisky. At his son’s first birthday party.
Needless to say, Edmundo got in on the act during the final. With the score 1-1 and 67 minutes on the clock, he elbowed a Bolivian defender very clearly and rather recklessly. Luckily for Brazil, the Uruguayan ref failed to spot the incident. Zagallo didn’t, however, and Edmundo was immediately substituted and scolded before Ronaldo put Brazil back in front.
The Copa America is back this summer, being held outside of South America for the first time in the USA. I wouldn’t recommend going to the USA to watch football, certainly not this prestigious old tournament. But the next time the Copa comes around, whether it is in Uruguay, Paraguay, or Colombia, please make the effort. Especially if you are a young, impressionable, football journalist. I could not recommend it highly enough; it has only taken me 19 years to get over it.
Footnotes
There were other players and teams there aside from Ronaldo and Brazil. Such as Jose Luis Chilavert, the Paraguay captain and goalkeeper, who once punched Diego Maradona, routinely abused linesmen, and gobbed on Roberto Carlos. A generally very unsettling sort of bloke.
Stepping out of a hotel lift in Cochabamba after a particularly late night, I walked straight into the great man entering the lift. Neither of us were looking to budge until I slowly looked up and attempted to focus. Staring right at me, indeed in to my soul, was the scariest, meanest looking bastard I ever did see. Chilavert. I apologised profusely and offered my hand; he accepted, walked into the lift and let out a booming laugh. That was a close one.
