Caros leitores
Deixo-vos com o link (http://planetarh.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=282) para uma belíssima entrevista do Doutor Bruno Valverde Cota a propósito de recursos humanos e marketing, a importância da qualificação e formação dos recursos humanos em empresas de serviços.
terça-feira, julho 25, 2006
terça-feira, julho 18, 2006
Dislogo
1) Estes dois últimos Sábados estive a dar aulas no programa de pós graduação Dislogo (futuramente Progama Geral de Gestão).
2) Alunos motivados e dedicados, o que torna um prazer dar estas aulas.
3) Conscientes de que a formação é um processo contínuo, sem pausas mas também, fazendo uso de um velho adágio alentejano, sem pressas.
2) Alunos motivados e dedicados, o que torna um prazer dar estas aulas.
3) Conscientes de que a formação é um processo contínuo, sem pausas mas também, fazendo uso de um velho adágio alentejano, sem pressas.
segunda-feira, julho 17, 2006
Pateira muda de endereço e ganha vida própria
O blogue Pateira cresceu, ganhou leitores mas manteve o espírito irreverente.
O crescimento levou-o a um nono endereço:
www.pateira.net
Abandona assim o alojamento Blogger mas continua disponível no link nesta página.
Força
AristotlePhilipsSmith
O crescimento levou-o a um nono endereço:
www.pateira.net
Abandona assim o alojamento Blogger mas continua disponível no link nesta página.
Força
AristotlePhilipsSmith
segunda-feira, julho 10, 2006
Declaration of Independence
This week's Worth Reading is the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted unanimously by a Congress of representatives of the thirteen British colonies in America 230 years ago today. Drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, who later became the third president of the United States, the Declaration begins with a succinct statement of what the American Founders considered to be universal political principles, then continues with a recitation of the "long train of abuses and usurpations" visited upon the colonies by Britain's King George III, abuses that in their view fully justify the declaration of independence contained in the final paragraph. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most important political documents of the United States. Its wording and ideas have also been incorporated into political statements and declarations in numerous countries, and it is today considered a classic statement of the principles of legitimate democratic government. Although the Declaration consists only of several hundred words of text, it has generated a huge literature of analysis, commentary, and criticism over the past several centuries. Most books on the Declaration contain extensive bibliographies but few of these are available online. The Web site of the National Archives of the United States provides links to several sources of additional readings, and a Google search will also provide much more material for those who wish to study the Declaration in greater detail. Our posthumous thanks to Thomas Jefferson and his coauthors, whose text appears below, for providing this week's Worth Reading.
With best wishes,
Tom Skladony
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
________________________________________
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1Georgia:Button GwinnettLyman HallGeorge Walton
Column 2North Carolina:William HooperJoseph HewesJohn PennSouth Carolina:Edward RutledgeThomas Heyward, Jr.Thomas Lynch, Jr.Arthur Middleton
Column 3Massachusetts:John HancockMaryland:Samuel ChaseWilliam PacaThomas StoneCharles Carroll of CarrolltonVirginia:George WytheRichard Henry LeeThomas JeffersonBenjamin HarrisonThomas Nelson, Jr.Francis Lightfoot LeeCarter Braxton
Column 4Pennsylvania:Robert MorrisBenjamin RushBenjamin FranklinJohn MortonGeorge ClymerJames SmithGeorge TaylorJames WilsonGeorge RossDelaware:Caesar RodneyGeorge ReadThomas McKean
Column 5New York:William FloydPhilip LivingstonFrancis LewisLewis MorrisNew Jersey:Richard StocktonJohn WitherspoonFrancis HopkinsonJohn HartAbraham Clark
Column 6New Hampshire:Josiah BartlettWilliam WhippleMassachusetts:Samuel AdamsJohn AdamsRobert Treat PaineElbridge GerryRhode Island:Stephen HopkinsWilliam ElleryConnecticut:Roger ShermanSamuel HuntingtonWilliam WilliamsOliver WolcottNew Hampshire:Matthew Thornton
With best wishes,
Tom Skladony
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
________________________________________
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1Georgia:Button GwinnettLyman HallGeorge Walton
Column 2North Carolina:William HooperJoseph HewesJohn PennSouth Carolina:Edward RutledgeThomas Heyward, Jr.Thomas Lynch, Jr.Arthur Middleton
Column 3Massachusetts:John HancockMaryland:Samuel ChaseWilliam PacaThomas StoneCharles Carroll of CarrolltonVirginia:George WytheRichard Henry LeeThomas JeffersonBenjamin HarrisonThomas Nelson, Jr.Francis Lightfoot LeeCarter Braxton
Column 4Pennsylvania:Robert MorrisBenjamin RushBenjamin FranklinJohn MortonGeorge ClymerJames SmithGeorge TaylorJames WilsonGeorge RossDelaware:Caesar RodneyGeorge ReadThomas McKean
Column 5New York:William FloydPhilip LivingstonFrancis LewisLewis MorrisNew Jersey:Richard StocktonJohn WitherspoonFrancis HopkinsonJohn HartAbraham Clark
Column 6New Hampshire:Josiah BartlettWilliam WhippleMassachusetts:Samuel AdamsJohn AdamsRobert Treat PaineElbridge GerryRhode Island:Stephen HopkinsWilliam ElleryConnecticut:Roger ShermanSamuel HuntingtonWilliam WilliamsOliver WolcottNew Hampshire:Matthew Thornton
quarta-feira, julho 05, 2006
Wall Street Journal e Cristiano Ronaldo
A grande questão de marketing do dia de hoje e uma chamada de atenção:- a primeira página do Wall Street Journal dedicada aos hedge funds portugueses e ao nosso futebol;- saber se a exibição de Cristiano Ronaldo de hoje vai ser suficiente para combater a depreciação no valor do seu passe e no seu valor de marketing derivada do célebre manguito que ele fez no estádio do SLBenfica (que empresa vai querer continuar associada a um jogador que insulta o público pagante e consumidor... já repararam que existe um banco que não vai renovar o patrocínio que mantinha com ele...porque será?).
segunda-feira, julho 03, 2006
Chelsea win the World Cup
Abramovich strikes - and Chelsea win the World Cup Kevin MitchellSunday July 2, 2006The Observer
Most mornings and early evenings on a patch of rough ground near a railway line in Cologne, a group of small boys can be found kicking a football, like millions of small boys everywhere. One is Ronaldhino. One is Michael Ballack. One is Arjen Robben. One is fat and wears glasses.
They are not in the national colours of their heroes. They are playing out their fantasies inspired by what they have seen on television of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea.
n a crowded cafe/bar overlooking the Schlossegarten in Stuttgart, Roman Abramovich, a man of such staggering wealth few fantasies are beyond him, sits surrounded by associates with bulges in their jackets. He has been waiting 20 minutes to be served.
One of his entourage reminds a waitress who it is she is ignoring. 'Bear with me,' she says, oblivious to Abramovich's fame, 'I've only got two hands.'
England fans, alerted to the presence of footballing royalty, surround the man who has the clout to fund Chelsea and half of Siberia; he obliges by smiling into their cameras and mobile phones. When he has finished signing their tout-inflated tickets he puts down his drink and his minders sweep him away to watch England grind out a turgid win over Ecuador.
The paradox that attends football is that, while it engages more people than any other sport, reaching into villages in the Andes, housing estates in Slough, penthouses in Minsk, the projects of Chicago, a playground in Cologne, and sustains the hopes of whole nations once every four years, it exists most vividly and more regularly in the imagination of its audience within the confines of a few grotesquely rich clubs.
Throughout this tournament, Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, has been characterised as 'the most powerful man in football.' Tell it to marines looking after Abramovich. Or his Russian friend who funds Corinthians in Brazil, where Jose Mourinho holidayed recently, where Tevez plays, where Mascherano plays. And what odds their playing for Chelsea this season, or next?
Whoever wins the World Cup, Abramovich wins. Theoretically, he could buy every decent player in the world. Practically, he has bought enough of them to give Chelsea not only a stranglehold on the domestic title and a good chance in Europe but jitters in the boardroom. They are deeply in the red. It might all yet crash around Roman's ears.
Meanwhile, Chelsea could beat Brazil. Truly. They might beat Argentina. Or Italy. Almost certainly England. So could Barcelona. That clubs are stronger than most national teams has been plain for at least the past two World Cups.
Chelsea could field this outfield line-up drawn from their personnel still at the tournament on Friday: Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Gallas; Makelele, Ballack, Lampard, Cole; Crespo, Shevchenko. If you wanted to throw Wayne Bridge or Robert Huth in goal, you'd have a complete team of formidable quality - all of them heading home soon to dominate the Premiership for the third season in a row.
How ironic that Franz Beckenbauer, whose presence is stamped all over this tournament, the man who brought the World Cup to Germany, should have uttered these words only eight years ago: 'The European league will come and the top clubs will gain in power. One day there won't be national teams any more. They will be replaced in the World Cup by club sides. Europe is growing together. At the moment the national team has a high value. But the influence of the clubs is getting bigger.'
Beckenbauer did not want to rock the World Cup boat last week when we asked how he had put those gloomy predictions aside for this tournament. This week, when Fifa go through the ritual of passing on the flame to the next hosts, South Africa, no doubt he will mouth the usual platitudes about the universal game.
But Beckenbauer eight years ago was right in some respects. He recognised then that allegiances shift alarmingly. Below the elite level, locality means little. Glamour overrides history, because tradition is increasingly meaningless in a world so blatantly driven by greed and excess. That is sad. But there is an upside. Even at Chelsea.
Anyone who remembers the days of Keith Jones being booed at Stamford Bridge by the club's racist supporters because he was black will, surely, regard it as progress - intentional or not - that Chelsea have in their 2006 squad a range of nationalities, skin colours, diversity and talent to inspire celebration rather than derision. Fans love or hate Didier Drogba not because he is black, but because he scores or misses. Impressionable children of the New Idiot Age are hypnotised by the charisma of wealth and success, to the point where old prejudices have become irrelevant. The result is good, if the route is flawed.
It would be absurd to dismiss the World Cup. This week, when they are slapping themselves on the back, the Fifa people will revel in television viewing figures estimated to be five billion, the biggest ever. It's part of the mix, part of football as entertainment.
When we pack up and go home, when the streets of Germany return to normal, football will change gears again. The Premiership resumes before the Pakistan cricket team leave England. Whoever reaches Berlin and triumphs will be remembered only for as long as news from Stamford Bridge does not crowd out everything else.
And, in a park in Cologne, the fat boy in the glasses will trail in the dust of Ronaldinho, Ballack and Robben...
Appearances, goals, and top performances by players from the most represented clubs at the World Cup (before quarter-finals)
Apps Players Still In Goals Man Of Match
Chelsea 46 15 11 8 8
Arsenal 46 16 6 7 2
Juventus 37 12 9 2 3
AC Milan 37 12 8 4 2
Barcelona 30 10 4 4 2
Man Utd 28 12 7 3 1
R Madrid 28 9 5 6 2
B Munich 27 9 7 2 3
D Kiev 24 7 7 1 1
Lyon 23 10 9 2 0
Valencia 20 8 4 3 0
Liverpool 19 9 4 5 2
Romario, a real prince among game's royalty
Everywhere you look in Germany, Pele is there. He is still the most marketable name and face in football. Nobody in the history of the game has come close. Not even Maradona, but the German cameramen seemed to have tired of recording his wide-eyed shirt-waving by the time Argentina were blowing it against Germany in Berlin on Friday.
But one old campaigner is still trying to catch Pele. By his own reckoning, Romario is 25 goals shy of a thousand in club football - which, statistically at least, would put him alongside Pele. It has become a disquieting obsession.
Baixinho (Shorty) has never lacked self-belief - understandably, given his 55 goals in 70 internationals and his title-winning exploits with PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona and Valencia, as well as spells of adoration at Vasco, Flamengo and Fluminense.
But he is running out of options. In April, Romario signed a six-month contract with Miami FC in the second-tier USL, a homely little competition played out in front of miserably small crowds.
Miami, a middling team lying sixth after 12 matches, are grateful for Romario's nine goals from 10 games. For what it's worth, Romario is leading the league and he's the king of Tropical Park. On 19 July, Romario will play for the league's all-star team in North Carolina - against Sheffield Wednesday.
Still, for a 40-year-old whose priorities are dancing and seeing in the sunrise, he's doing OK. Since the days he left the favela of the Jacarezinho district in Rio, he has always done his own thing.
As well as chasing Pele's record, Romario is picking up pocket money for his six children, the youngest of whom, one-year-old Ivy, has Down's syndrome.
In his last appearance for Brazil, a year ago, he scored. He lifted his yellow shirt to reveal a message on his T-shirt: 'My daughter has Down's, and she's a princess.' In his own way, Romario is a bit of a prince.
Most mornings and early evenings on a patch of rough ground near a railway line in Cologne, a group of small boys can be found kicking a football, like millions of small boys everywhere. One is Ronaldhino. One is Michael Ballack. One is Arjen Robben. One is fat and wears glasses.
They are not in the national colours of their heroes. They are playing out their fantasies inspired by what they have seen on television of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea.
n a crowded cafe/bar overlooking the Schlossegarten in Stuttgart, Roman Abramovich, a man of such staggering wealth few fantasies are beyond him, sits surrounded by associates with bulges in their jackets. He has been waiting 20 minutes to be served.
One of his entourage reminds a waitress who it is she is ignoring. 'Bear with me,' she says, oblivious to Abramovich's fame, 'I've only got two hands.'
England fans, alerted to the presence of footballing royalty, surround the man who has the clout to fund Chelsea and half of Siberia; he obliges by smiling into their cameras and mobile phones. When he has finished signing their tout-inflated tickets he puts down his drink and his minders sweep him away to watch England grind out a turgid win over Ecuador.
The paradox that attends football is that, while it engages more people than any other sport, reaching into villages in the Andes, housing estates in Slough, penthouses in Minsk, the projects of Chicago, a playground in Cologne, and sustains the hopes of whole nations once every four years, it exists most vividly and more regularly in the imagination of its audience within the confines of a few grotesquely rich clubs.
Throughout this tournament, Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, has been characterised as 'the most powerful man in football.' Tell it to marines looking after Abramovich. Or his Russian friend who funds Corinthians in Brazil, where Jose Mourinho holidayed recently, where Tevez plays, where Mascherano plays. And what odds their playing for Chelsea this season, or next?
Whoever wins the World Cup, Abramovich wins. Theoretically, he could buy every decent player in the world. Practically, he has bought enough of them to give Chelsea not only a stranglehold on the domestic title and a good chance in Europe but jitters in the boardroom. They are deeply in the red. It might all yet crash around Roman's ears.
Meanwhile, Chelsea could beat Brazil. Truly. They might beat Argentina. Or Italy. Almost certainly England. So could Barcelona. That clubs are stronger than most national teams has been plain for at least the past two World Cups.
Chelsea could field this outfield line-up drawn from their personnel still at the tournament on Friday: Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Gallas; Makelele, Ballack, Lampard, Cole; Crespo, Shevchenko. If you wanted to throw Wayne Bridge or Robert Huth in goal, you'd have a complete team of formidable quality - all of them heading home soon to dominate the Premiership for the third season in a row.
How ironic that Franz Beckenbauer, whose presence is stamped all over this tournament, the man who brought the World Cup to Germany, should have uttered these words only eight years ago: 'The European league will come and the top clubs will gain in power. One day there won't be national teams any more. They will be replaced in the World Cup by club sides. Europe is growing together. At the moment the national team has a high value. But the influence of the clubs is getting bigger.'
Beckenbauer did not want to rock the World Cup boat last week when we asked how he had put those gloomy predictions aside for this tournament. This week, when Fifa go through the ritual of passing on the flame to the next hosts, South Africa, no doubt he will mouth the usual platitudes about the universal game.
But Beckenbauer eight years ago was right in some respects. He recognised then that allegiances shift alarmingly. Below the elite level, locality means little. Glamour overrides history, because tradition is increasingly meaningless in a world so blatantly driven by greed and excess. That is sad. But there is an upside. Even at Chelsea.
Anyone who remembers the days of Keith Jones being booed at Stamford Bridge by the club's racist supporters because he was black will, surely, regard it as progress - intentional or not - that Chelsea have in their 2006 squad a range of nationalities, skin colours, diversity and talent to inspire celebration rather than derision. Fans love or hate Didier Drogba not because he is black, but because he scores or misses. Impressionable children of the New Idiot Age are hypnotised by the charisma of wealth and success, to the point where old prejudices have become irrelevant. The result is good, if the route is flawed.
It would be absurd to dismiss the World Cup. This week, when they are slapping themselves on the back, the Fifa people will revel in television viewing figures estimated to be five billion, the biggest ever. It's part of the mix, part of football as entertainment.
When we pack up and go home, when the streets of Germany return to normal, football will change gears again. The Premiership resumes before the Pakistan cricket team leave England. Whoever reaches Berlin and triumphs will be remembered only for as long as news from Stamford Bridge does not crowd out everything else.
And, in a park in Cologne, the fat boy in the glasses will trail in the dust of Ronaldinho, Ballack and Robben...
Appearances, goals, and top performances by players from the most represented clubs at the World Cup (before quarter-finals)
Apps Players Still In Goals Man Of Match
Chelsea 46 15 11 8 8
Arsenal 46 16 6 7 2
Juventus 37 12 9 2 3
AC Milan 37 12 8 4 2
Barcelona 30 10 4 4 2
Man Utd 28 12 7 3 1
R Madrid 28 9 5 6 2
B Munich 27 9 7 2 3
D Kiev 24 7 7 1 1
Lyon 23 10 9 2 0
Valencia 20 8 4 3 0
Liverpool 19 9 4 5 2
Romario, a real prince among game's royalty
Everywhere you look in Germany, Pele is there. He is still the most marketable name and face in football. Nobody in the history of the game has come close. Not even Maradona, but the German cameramen seemed to have tired of recording his wide-eyed shirt-waving by the time Argentina were blowing it against Germany in Berlin on Friday.
But one old campaigner is still trying to catch Pele. By his own reckoning, Romario is 25 goals shy of a thousand in club football - which, statistically at least, would put him alongside Pele. It has become a disquieting obsession.
Baixinho (Shorty) has never lacked self-belief - understandably, given his 55 goals in 70 internationals and his title-winning exploits with PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona and Valencia, as well as spells of adoration at Vasco, Flamengo and Fluminense.
But he is running out of options. In April, Romario signed a six-month contract with Miami FC in the second-tier USL, a homely little competition played out in front of miserably small crowds.
Miami, a middling team lying sixth after 12 matches, are grateful for Romario's nine goals from 10 games. For what it's worth, Romario is leading the league and he's the king of Tropical Park. On 19 July, Romario will play for the league's all-star team in North Carolina - against Sheffield Wednesday.
Still, for a 40-year-old whose priorities are dancing and seeing in the sunrise, he's doing OK. Since the days he left the favela of the Jacarezinho district in Rio, he has always done his own thing.
As well as chasing Pele's record, Romario is picking up pocket money for his six children, the youngest of whom, one-year-old Ivy, has Down's syndrome.
In his last appearance for Brazil, a year ago, he scored. He lifted his yellow shirt to reveal a message on his T-shirt: 'My daughter has Down's, and she's a princess.' In his own way, Romario is a bit of a prince.
They got what they deserved
Complacent to the last, Eriksson and his spoilt players got what they deserved - absolutely nichts Richard Williams in Baden-BadenMonday July 3, 2006The Guardian
In the aftermath of a punishing defeat, no man should be called to account for his impromptu remarks. But when Frank Lampard said on Saturday night that England had "deserved" to win the match in which defeat had just eliminated them from the World Cup, he was inadvertently exposing the problem at the heart of the team's consistent inability to scale the highest peaks.
David Beckham had used the same word earlier in the campaign. England would get to the World Cup final, the captain said, because they "deserved" to be there. Since no deeper analysis was forthcoming, his listeners were left to infer that the evidence in support of his contention might have included any or all of the following: England's historic role as the game's mother country; the vast popularity of the Premiership at home and abroad; the inflated pay and celebrity status of its players; and the attention lavished on the public appearances of their wives and girlfriends.
When Sven-Goran Eriksson also spoke about the team "deserving" to reach the final, he tried to suggest that it was because of the quality of their football. Strictly on the basis of their successive performances against Hungary, Jamaica, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden and Ecuador, however, it would have taken a battalion of the world's finest legal advocates to make a case for the justice of their arrival in the final rounds of the biggest international football tournament of all.
The attitude represented by the words of Lampard and Beckham represents a culture of complacency at work, and it could be seen in the climactic shoot-out against Portugal, when three of England's penalty takers failed with attempts in which the slackness of their body language and their shooting spoke of men who were ready to put their trust in the belief, as England players have believed for several generations, that their reputations alone would be enough to ensure their success.
A successful apprenticeship in the upper reaches of English football wraps such an effective comfort blanket around a young player that he is seldom exposed to the harsh realities of the outside world, and never confronts those moments in which failure really does mean disaster. When they are called to summon reserves of resilience at moments of extreme pressure, they discover those reserves either do not exist or have been depleted by the demands of domestic football.
Where, on Saturday, was the Englishman prepared to take control of the game as Zinédine Zidane would do in France's defeat of Brazil later that night? The only candidate was Owen Hargreaves, who both converted his penalty - the one Englishman to do so - and secured the man- of-the-match award with 120 minutes of non-stop tackling, intercepting, running and passing. Alone among his colleagues, he displayed a dynamism that seemed to come from within. What also makes him unique among the squad, of course, is that he has never lived in England. The two things may not be unconnected.
Before Hargreaves was born, his parents left Britain to make a new life for their family in Canada. They succeeded, and in so doing may have laid the mental foundation for his son's career. Owen Hargreaves arrived in Munich as a 16-year-old and began a long struggle to establish himself among the superstars in the first team at Bayern, in a country where he knew no one and had to learn the language from scratch. When times were difficult, when he was dropped or suffered injuries, his parents' example of ambition and self-sufficiency can have done him no harm.
Hargreaves may also have benefited from the Bundesliga's 34-match season and its mid-winter break. Whereas he faced up to Portugal's challenge with what the English like to see as their characteristic qualities of energy and doggedness, his native-born team-mates struggled to turn their talent and desire for success into the currency of coherent football.
Individually, there was much to admire in their display - in Ashley Cole's gradual return to form, in John Terry's obduracy, in Aaron Lennon's zigzag runs and in Peter Crouch's sheer willingness - but collectively they could only demonstrate the difficulty they experience in achieving, even sporadically, the kind of momentum that the better sides in this tournament have maintained virtually from first whistle to last.
Permutating his resources for the fifth time in five matches as he responded to the opposition's strengths and his own squad's injuries, Eriksson asked Hargreaves to provide a screen for the defence while a midfield quartet attempted to support Wayne Rooney, the lone front runner. That it took the coach so long to reach this conclusion, after having Hargreaves in his squad for almost five years, is among the most serious indictments of his regime.
The fatal flaw in the way the formation was applied was the use of Rio Ferdinand as the launchpad for attacks. On countless occasions the ball was given to the centre-back in the expectation that he would make the first significant pass. He would take a touch to control the ball, look up, take another touch, look up again, have another think and then, after a delay often of six or seven seconds, play it - not always accurately - to a team-mate.
By the time he was ready to part with the ball, two things would have happened: first, his team-mates had effectively come to a standstill; second, the Portuguese defenders had been given the time to move in to cover them. So almost every England move would start from a static position, with the opposition well prepared for counter-measures.
Although Ferdinand is a decent passer of the ball, he is not Andrea Pirlo. Neither is Hargreaves, but he should have been encouraged to become the kind of pivot that Claude Makelele represents for Chelsea and France, taking the ball from the defence and recycling it to the midfield with the minimum of fuss or wasted time, acting as the team's metronome. Then England might have had a chance to develop the kind of rhythm and movement that we sometimes see from Arsenal, Chelsea and, less frequently nowadays, Manchester United, but at which English-born players in general have never been adept.
When the Football Association hired Eriksson as England's first foreign coach, it was reasonable to expect that an improvement in fluidity was among the benefits the players could expect from his long experience in Italy and Portugal. All they got, really, was a swift application of common sense to a formerly chaotic selection policy and a discovery that Eriksson's notion of an acceptable standard of living matched their own five-star expectations.
His inability to get Englishmen to play football together with a combination of spontaneity and consistency means that, after its promising start, the Eriksson era must on balance be accounted a failure. Sadly, given the unfailing courtesy with which he confronted an often hostile environment, he was not the man to dismantle the mental barrier that prevented his players from turning their talents into real achievement at international level. In the end they, and he, deserved no more than they got.
In the aftermath of a punishing defeat, no man should be called to account for his impromptu remarks. But when Frank Lampard said on Saturday night that England had "deserved" to win the match in which defeat had just eliminated them from the World Cup, he was inadvertently exposing the problem at the heart of the team's consistent inability to scale the highest peaks.
David Beckham had used the same word earlier in the campaign. England would get to the World Cup final, the captain said, because they "deserved" to be there. Since no deeper analysis was forthcoming, his listeners were left to infer that the evidence in support of his contention might have included any or all of the following: England's historic role as the game's mother country; the vast popularity of the Premiership at home and abroad; the inflated pay and celebrity status of its players; and the attention lavished on the public appearances of their wives and girlfriends.
When Sven-Goran Eriksson also spoke about the team "deserving" to reach the final, he tried to suggest that it was because of the quality of their football. Strictly on the basis of their successive performances against Hungary, Jamaica, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden and Ecuador, however, it would have taken a battalion of the world's finest legal advocates to make a case for the justice of their arrival in the final rounds of the biggest international football tournament of all.
The attitude represented by the words of Lampard and Beckham represents a culture of complacency at work, and it could be seen in the climactic shoot-out against Portugal, when three of England's penalty takers failed with attempts in which the slackness of their body language and their shooting spoke of men who were ready to put their trust in the belief, as England players have believed for several generations, that their reputations alone would be enough to ensure their success.
A successful apprenticeship in the upper reaches of English football wraps such an effective comfort blanket around a young player that he is seldom exposed to the harsh realities of the outside world, and never confronts those moments in which failure really does mean disaster. When they are called to summon reserves of resilience at moments of extreme pressure, they discover those reserves either do not exist or have been depleted by the demands of domestic football.
Where, on Saturday, was the Englishman prepared to take control of the game as Zinédine Zidane would do in France's defeat of Brazil later that night? The only candidate was Owen Hargreaves, who both converted his penalty - the one Englishman to do so - and secured the man- of-the-match award with 120 minutes of non-stop tackling, intercepting, running and passing. Alone among his colleagues, he displayed a dynamism that seemed to come from within. What also makes him unique among the squad, of course, is that he has never lived in England. The two things may not be unconnected.
Before Hargreaves was born, his parents left Britain to make a new life for their family in Canada. They succeeded, and in so doing may have laid the mental foundation for his son's career. Owen Hargreaves arrived in Munich as a 16-year-old and began a long struggle to establish himself among the superstars in the first team at Bayern, in a country where he knew no one and had to learn the language from scratch. When times were difficult, when he was dropped or suffered injuries, his parents' example of ambition and self-sufficiency can have done him no harm.
Hargreaves may also have benefited from the Bundesliga's 34-match season and its mid-winter break. Whereas he faced up to Portugal's challenge with what the English like to see as their characteristic qualities of energy and doggedness, his native-born team-mates struggled to turn their talent and desire for success into the currency of coherent football.
Individually, there was much to admire in their display - in Ashley Cole's gradual return to form, in John Terry's obduracy, in Aaron Lennon's zigzag runs and in Peter Crouch's sheer willingness - but collectively they could only demonstrate the difficulty they experience in achieving, even sporadically, the kind of momentum that the better sides in this tournament have maintained virtually from first whistle to last.
Permutating his resources for the fifth time in five matches as he responded to the opposition's strengths and his own squad's injuries, Eriksson asked Hargreaves to provide a screen for the defence while a midfield quartet attempted to support Wayne Rooney, the lone front runner. That it took the coach so long to reach this conclusion, after having Hargreaves in his squad for almost five years, is among the most serious indictments of his regime.
The fatal flaw in the way the formation was applied was the use of Rio Ferdinand as the launchpad for attacks. On countless occasions the ball was given to the centre-back in the expectation that he would make the first significant pass. He would take a touch to control the ball, look up, take another touch, look up again, have another think and then, after a delay often of six or seven seconds, play it - not always accurately - to a team-mate.
By the time he was ready to part with the ball, two things would have happened: first, his team-mates had effectively come to a standstill; second, the Portuguese defenders had been given the time to move in to cover them. So almost every England move would start from a static position, with the opposition well prepared for counter-measures.
Although Ferdinand is a decent passer of the ball, he is not Andrea Pirlo. Neither is Hargreaves, but he should have been encouraged to become the kind of pivot that Claude Makelele represents for Chelsea and France, taking the ball from the defence and recycling it to the midfield with the minimum of fuss or wasted time, acting as the team's metronome. Then England might have had a chance to develop the kind of rhythm and movement that we sometimes see from Arsenal, Chelsea and, less frequently nowadays, Manchester United, but at which English-born players in general have never been adept.
When the Football Association hired Eriksson as England's first foreign coach, it was reasonable to expect that an improvement in fluidity was among the benefits the players could expect from his long experience in Italy and Portugal. All they got, really, was a swift application of common sense to a formerly chaotic selection policy and a discovery that Eriksson's notion of an acceptable standard of living matched their own five-star expectations.
His inability to get Englishmen to play football together with a combination of spontaneity and consistency means that, after its promising start, the Eriksson era must on balance be accounted a failure. Sadly, given the unfailing courtesy with which he confronted an often hostile environment, he was not the man to dismantle the mental barrier that prevented his players from turning their talents into real achievement at international level. In the end they, and he, deserved no more than they got.
The hand of god haunts England
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