The opening game of a FIFA World Cup™ is clearly like no other match – as anyone who has actually played in one will attest. Take the opening game of France 1998, for example.
In one corner was an ultra-talented Brazil side which eventually reached the Final, while in the other was a Scotland team that would finish last in their group. Yet the fixture turned into such a battle of nerves that it was finally decided in favour of the Brazilians only with the aid of a headed goal from a free-kick and an own-goal.
Who better then to discuss this phenomenon with than Cesar Sampaio, who was Brazil’s holding midfielder and the scorer of the aforementioned header in the Stade de France on the last occasion A Seleção opened a FIFA World Cup.
“You really can’t imagine what the opening game is like,” he told us. “I remember lunchtime on the day before the match, time was passing so slowly. Everyone slept badly that night. It only really began to dawn on me that I was part of the opening of a World Cup when the national anthem started up and I began to think about a lot of things: my childhood and other aspects of my life,” recalled the defensive midfielder, who today works as technical director of Joinville EC.
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