LONDON
— Given what happened at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it is
remarkable how that country’s flesh and blood remain central to
seemingly every decent team in Europe.
If
there is one player who has stood head and shoulders above the
disintegration of Chelsea this season, it is Willian — and he was the
club’s savior once again on Wednesday, when his immaculate free kick
pulled out a 2-1 victory for the Blues over Dynamo Kiev.
Willian’s
goal was reminiscent of the art Brazilians mastered 60 or more years
ago, the ability to give a dead ball the spin that drives it up and over
a wall of defenders, then arching down beneath the crossbar beyond the
goalkeeper’s reach.
It
is the fifth time Willian has scored in Chelsea’s troubled season, and
every one of those goals has been a free kick from 20 yards or more.
If
you prefer the flowing movement of the ball at the feet of a moving
athlete, then you needed to look no further than Munich where, also
Wednesday, Bayern shot Arsenal
to pieces. The midfield conductor of this movement for the German
champion was Thiago Alcântara, and the maker of so many chances in
Munich’s 5-1 win was Douglas Costa, a sorcerer on either wing.
How,
one wonders, did this Costa get nowhere near the Brazil team that
lacked the skills to go beyond the semi-final of a World Cup on
Brazilian soil? How did this fellow, so fleet of foot, so adept at
skipping past opponents and so accurate in providing crosses, not get a
place on the poorest roster of players in his nation’s memory?
Of
course, in the Bayern Munich club he is in a team of all the talents.
There’s Thiago for a start, and while this midfield maestro was born in
Italy of Brazilian parents (and in fact chooses to represent Spain at
national team level) there are clues everywhere to his inheritance.
His
father, Mazinho, played in the Brazil team that won the World Cup in
1994, in the United States. And the full family name includes do
Nascimento, the same name as that of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known
to the world simply as Pelé.
So
it is in the genes, despite the fact that Thiago and his younger
brother Rafael, known as Rafinha, enrolled with the Barcelona academy.
It was from there that Pep Guardiola plucked Thiago for Bayern, and
surely Guardiola was aware that had his protege stayed he was the
logical successor to Xavi Hernández at Barça.
So,
while Thiago was stroking the ball around for Bayern this week, it took
two goals from Neymar to help carry Barça through to the knockout stage
of the Champions League (and it was another Brazilian, Hulk, who
created the goals by which Zenit St. Petersburg also qualified for the
next round on Wednesday).
As suggested, the Brazilians are everywhere in the league of champions.
It
would be hard to put a price on the contribution of Willian if his club
manager, José Mourinho, escapes being fired by Chelsea this season.
Mourinho seems to have aged in a month with the deep concern over the
way his team, the English champion six months ago, has capsized this
term.
Yet
Chelsea’s fans, remembering what Mourinho brought them in the past,
spent Wednesday shouting at the top of their voices in support of the
manager. “What they did for me is not normal,” the manager said after
the narrow win. “Maybe they don’t read papers or listen to the TV
pundits, or they have a big heart and a great memory of the great
moments I brought them. Until my last day at this club, I will give
everything for them.”
Thanks
to Willian in particular, there will be other days in the Champions
League for Chelsea. Not simply because of his free kick, but because of
his energy, his never-say-die attitude, Willian is dedicated to turning
the season around.
When
a team is in such a trough, it needs a friend, and Chelsea found one
during the first half when, from Willian’s teasing cross, Kiev’s
defender Aleksander Dragovic put his head to the ball, and diverted it
into his own net.
On
78 minutes Dragovic atoned by striking the shot that, via a deflection
off the arm of John Terry, squared the score. Then, within five minutes,
Willian guided the free kick that won the game and gives Chelsea every
chance of progressing in the tournament.
For
Bayern, there never was any doubt. Robert Lewandowski was left
criminally unmarked when he backpedaled and headed the opening goal,
Thomas Müller’s ability to slip unseen into the penalty area and strike
with either foot claimed two more goals, and David Alaba — nominally a
defender — hit a searing drive past the Arsenal goalkeeper, Petr Cech.
And
Arjen Robben scored with his first touch of the ball less than a minute
after entering the field as a substitute for the 19-year-old Frenchman
Kingsley Coman who is yet another winger with speed and good footwork.
In
London last month, Arsenal had beaten Bayern 2-0. Here, weakened by the
absence of injured players, Arsenal was bewitched and bewildered.
Costa’s run for the final goal took four Arsenal players out of the play
in one 30-yard dash before laying on the chance for Müller.
Douglas
Costa hasn’t suddenly come from nowhere. He is one of the young
Brazilians recruited by Shakhtar Donetsk in their mid-teens, and after
five seasons in Ukraine he was purchased by Munich this summer. He has
shone week after week for Bayern, outrunning and outwitting Germans who
humiliated Brazil in 2014; yet his home nation ignored him that year.
Arsenal’s
defender Per Mertesacker, part of the victorious German team two years
ago, now knows all about Douglas Costa. “They were brilliant tonight,”
Mertesacker said in Munich. “But we played without courage. We let them
get into their rhythm.”
Tags
SOCCER