The Long Haul

The Brazilian has played in Madrid for the past decade and won the Champions League three times, but it’s taken him a long time to gain the trust of his national side

- Tim Vickery & Sid Lowe

At a recent event at the HQ of the Brazilian FA, in the presence of such luminaries as Fabio Capello and Marcelo Bielsa, national coach Tite gave a lecture which paused to show three Brazil goals. Two of them came from the much-loved side of 1982 and were full of bewitching midfield elaboration.

The third was the final goal in a 3-0 win over Paraguay at the end of March, a result that sealed Brazil’s place in next year’s World Cup with four games to go.

The move, a stunning four-man combination, lost nothing in comparison with the memorable moments from 35 years ago.

Wide on the left, Neymar passed square and looped round. Marcelo passed square and burst ahead.

Philippe Coutinho planted forward to Paulinho, who played a sublime back heel into the space behind Paraguay’s right-back – space, in part, that opened up due to the cross field movement of Neymar – and there was Marcelo, one-on-one with the keeper, to score with a delightfully subtle little chip. It was a magnificent piece of football. And extraordinarily, more than a decade after his splendid goal scoring international debut, it was the first time Marcelo had found the back of the net for Brazil in a competitive game.

The teenage left-back scored a screamer against Wales at White Hart Lane when making his debut back in September 2006. But even though that was before right-back Dani Alves made his senior international bow, Marcelo has less than half the number of caps of his Brazil team-mate. Indeed, before Tite took over last year, it is striking how few competitive games Marcelo actually played for his country.