THE land of baseball and basketball landed the World Cup finals with apparent disinterest in the United States, while the rest of the world lapped it all up.

Brazil arrived with a new team and a new style.

The all-out attack had gone, now it was a mixture of fluent passing, work rate and a no-nonsense attitude to defence.

England failed to qualify, so did Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and so it was Jack Charlton's Irish Republic who captured the home imagination. He had his assembled "Irish" squad, some had never set foot in Ireland.

Yet Charlton found some distant, obscure relative and pronounced him Irish, all within the rules and so he had quality, experienced players who beat Italy 1-0 in the first round match to really set the scene.

However, negative football from then on, coupled with moaning from Charlton about almost everything, cost the Irish support.

They came up against Holland in the second round, were outplayed and lost 2-0.

The fairytale dream was over.

Italy, one of the favourites, almost went out in the first round, being one of the teams to qualify from third place for the second round. Against Nigeria in the second round they were a whisker away from elimination, but an extra-time goal took them through 2-1. They scrambled through to the semi-finals with a lucky 2-1 win over Spain and it was the same against Bulgaria in the semi-final.

A run of luck like this to the final gave the impression that the name 'Italy' was written on the World Cup.

Brazil got better as the tournament went on, beating the United States by a slender 1-0 in the second round.

They went on to beat Holland 3-2 in the quarter finals in a classic encounter and then won 1-0 against Sweden in the semi-final.

The world of football expected one of the greatest finals ever. Players like Jorginho, Marcio Santos, Zinho and Romario, against the likes of Roberto Baggio, Albertini, Baresi and Maldini.

It should have been vintage stuff, but it wasn't.

Italy recognised that despite the quality of their players, they were not playing well. So, they aimed for extra-time and a penalty shoot-out from the start, pulling all eleven players into their own half.

Brazil played some lovely football, creating chances, but always an Italian would get his body or a foot in the way or Pagliuca in goal would produce a great save.

Nil-nil at full time, nil-nil after extra-time and so Italy had achieved what they set out for, a penalty shoot-out.

Five penalties each, the World Cup would now be decided on the nerve-tingling penalty shoot-out. Romario and Branco scored for Brazil, Albertini and Evani replied for Italy, Dunga made it 3-2 for Brazil. Now the world stood by and watched as the great Italian striker Roberto Baggio placed the ball on the spot.

A formality surely, they thought back in Italy, Baggio couldn't miss, could he?

He came forward, he was calm, casual, the boot made contact with the ball, but it was too high, over the crossbar it went and the Brazilian samba drums rang out a victorious message across the world.

A fourth World Cup win for Brazil, the greatest footballing nation in the world was back in business.

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