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BLIND, STUPID AND DESPERATE
 
Thing of the week:
Dunga
By Ian Grant
 
Star of the World Cup? Owen, teenage king of the ripping sprint and the comedy dive? Okocha, so skilful even his team-mates bought his dummies? Batistuta or Vieri, top class goal machines? Bergkamp, petulant genius?

Nah. Dunga. You heard.

Amid the multi-million pound circus of fannydangle that is the Brazilian national team in 1998, your man is an increasingly striking figure. A haircut that looks suspiciously self-inflicted; a crumbled face that, even at its happiest, rarely manages anything but a scowl; a man that showbiz has passed by. His absence from the recent plague of Nike ads has been conspicuous - Dunga, you would imagine, wouldn't ever play football on the beach for fear of being mistaken for someone having fun, although it's possible that he might slide-tackle the occasional 747 down the local airport.

So there he is, plodding around the midfield, dumping glorious passes at his team-mates' feet, picking off opposition waifs and strays, trundling up to deliver set pieces that ought to have Roberto Carlos taking notes. With party tricks exploding all around him, he's ignored, solitary, unique, magnificent. If he ever scores, expect him to reveal a t-shirt that says "Just doing me job, mate".

Football isn't ice skating. Not yet, anyway. In a parallel universe, Dunga is the genius, Ronaldo is the journeyman and Martin O'Neill was voted president of FIFA instead of Sepp Blatter.

Dunga. Sourpuss. Hero.