By: Sam Borden

For years, it has gone without saying in Brazil that fathers do not let their children grow up to be goalkeepers.

This is the land, remember, of the Jogo Bonito, the beautiful game. It is for strikers and stylists and supermen. Attackers here are likened to legends like Pelé and Zico. But goalkeepers? They are likened to, well, poultry and produce.

That was what made Saturday so special. It was not just that the Brazilian national team beat Chile to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. It was not even that Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and his players, who know that anything less than a title will be considered a failure, are now three victories away from “reaching heaven,” as Scolari said.

It was that the hero of it all was a goalkeeper. Or, as the locals might say, a frangueiro.

Julio Cesar, the starting goalkeeper for Brazil, is a frangueiro (chicken man). He is also a peru (turkey) and, on occasion, a mão de alface (or, roughly, lettuce hands). These are the printable euphemisms that Brazilians have for goalkeepers.

Against Chile, though, Julio Cesar was a star. He saved two of Chile’s five penalty kicks in the shootout and saw a third one bounce off the post, allowing Brazil to barely slide past its South American rival. In the interview area after the game, Julio Cesar stood alongside the standard spotlight fixtures for Brazil, like the star striker Neymar, and basked in the glow of victory.

Four years ago, Julio Cesar cried after making a critical error in Brazil’s World Cup loss to the Netherlands. After his performance against Chile, he cried again — this time, he said, because he was so happy.

“I hope to give more interviews like this,” he said. “This is my dream.”

If history is any indication, he should not count on it. In Brazil, goalkeepers are special, and not in a good way. They are the Little League right fielders, the last boy picked. In pickup games on the countless asphalt courts around this country, children usually play a form of rock-paper-scissors to decide which unlucky soul has to begin the game at goalkeeper. In the slightly more organized games in which adults rent a field to play on, anyone who agrees to play goalkeeper always plays free of charge.

When watching professional games, most fans in Brazil have little use for goalkeepers, to the point that some of the saints and martyrs who actually take on the job have likened the feeling of playing goal to living on death row.

The analogy is not far off the mark: After all, for goalkeepers in Brazil, it sometimes feels as if each game is just another day closer to the moment that ends you.

“The fans, they are always waiting, waiting, waiting for the mistake,” said Zetti, a former goalkeeper for Brazil’s national team. “A forward, he misses nine shots and no one says anything. A goalkeeper misses one shot, and they say he takes a frango.”

Zetti shook his head.

“They say that because it is like trying to catch a chicken — the ball slips away,” he said. “It is very disrespectful. I always hated it.”

Zetti, who played 18 years as a professional and was a backup on the 1994 World Cup championship team, is doing his best to reverse the prevailing sentiment. About six years ago, his teenage son wanted instruction on how to become a goalkeeper. Zetti began teaching the boy and a few of his friends.

Soon, there was interest from other children in the area. Zetti began to wonder if perhaps there could be a business, even as the basic notion — teaching Brazilians how to be goalkeepers — seemed about as feasible as opening a school for sunbathing in Siberia.

“It was kind of a joke at first,” Zetti said. “My idea was just to have fun. But then it actually started to grow.”

“I remember when Zetti first opened this school, I thought, ‘This will never work,’ “ said Ronaldo Rocha, a longtime Sao Paulo resident. He laughed and put his hand on the shoulder of his son Lucas, who was standing next to him. “Now my boy is a goalkeeper,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”

The history of Brazilian goalkeepers is mixed. Many longtime fans still think of Moacir Barbosa as the most famous keeper in Brazilian history, but not with any sort of affection. Barbosa was roundly blamed for giving up the deciding goal in the final against Uruguay during a disastrous 1950 World Cup defeat, a game that has haunted the country ever since.

Zetti recalled that Barbosa, who died in 2000, said that “after that game, he felt like he had been sent to a prison for the rest of his life.”

United States coach Jurgen Klinsmann says attack will be the best form of defence when his American underdogs tackle Belgium for a place in the World Cup quarter-finals. The United States confounded all pre-tournament predictions by battling their way out of a daunting Group G, finishing behind Germany but claiming the runners-up spot ahead of Portugal and Ghana.

Klinsmann acknowledged, however, that his team must improve on last Thursday’s 1-0 defeat by the Germans in Recife if they are to provide another shock by eliminating Belgium, regarded by many as tournament dark horses.

Of particular concern to Klinsmann is his team’s attack. According to FIFA statistics compiled after the completion of the first round, the United States had just 72 attacks in three games — putting them 31st among 32 teams.

Klinsmann says he wants to buck that trend against a Belgium side who may be missing centre-backs Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen, both of whom are battling to recover from injuries. “It’s definitely something we learnt out of the Germany game,” Klinsmann said. “We were too deep, especially the first 20 minutes.

“I was screaming my lungs off there to get the back line out and to move the entire unit higher up the field. “So we’ll work on that over the next couple of days in training, to shift the entire game forward and through that put more pressure on the opponent and create more chances. This is really one of our goals. It was good at the other end. We didn’t give away too many chances. But this is something we have to do better, we have to bring up the players higher and create chances.”

‘Prefer to win 1-0’

Klinsmann was criticised by sections of the US media on the eve of the tournament for stating that his side had no realistic chance of success. But since reaching the knockout phase, Klinsmann has changed tack, bullishly telling his players they can go beyond the last 16 and ordering them to change their return flights for the Monday after the July 13 final.

His side will also be playing familiar opposition. In two friendlies in the last three years, Belgium have recorded two victories, winning 1-0 in 2011 before recording a 4-2 success away in May last year. “They are full of individual talent, there’s no doubt about it,” Klinsmann reflected. “We had the opportunity to play them twice in the last two years. Both times they came out as the winning team, but we also believe we can have enough confidence going into this very special knockout game to say we are able to beat them.”

Klinsmann’s Belgian counterpart, Marc Wilmots, meanwhile has shrugged off suggestions that his team have so far failed to contribute to the feast of attacking football being laid on at this World Cup. Three group wins over Algeria, Russia and South Korea were secured with very little flair, but Wilmots is not concerned.

“If you ask whether I’d rather put on a good show and go out at the first stage, or win games 1-0, I prefer to win 1-0,” Wilmots said. “It’s clear — you have to be a realist and playing to the gallery is not the goal.”

Lionel Messi’s goals have fired Argentina into the World Cup last 16 but they will look for a better all-round performance when they meet Switzerland on Tuesday. The diminutive four-time player of the year has finally sparked for his country, hitting four of their six goals as Argentina qualified top of Group F.

But Argentina needed Messi’s late winner to overcome Iran 1-0 and they also shipped two goals before beating Nigeria 3-2, lowering expectations of a third world title. They will face their toughest opponents yet in Switzerland, who put seven goals past group opponents Ecuador, France and Honduras, including three from Xherdan Shaqiri.

“Now we can’t make any mistakes as any error will see us getting knocked out,” Messi warned after Argentina negotiated the group stage. “There is nothing more beautiful than to be world champion, to achieve that with my country.” In Argentina’s favour is that more than 100,000 of their fans are expected to flood Sao Paulo ahead of Tuesday’s game, including many inside Corinthians Arena.

But they will have to cope with the loss of Manchester City forward Sergio Aguero, who is out with a muscle injury after going off in the first half against Nigeria.Both Messi and coach Alejandro Sabella acknowledge that Argentina are a work in progress but they will now hope to raise the heat on their slow-burning campaign.

“We’ve got nine points, but we can always get better,” Sabella said. Former Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld will relish the clash against one of the pre-tournament favourites in what he says will be his last hurrah before retirement.

Despite their 5-2 hammering by France, Switzerland have twice bettered Latin American opposition already after their 2-1 and 3-0 wins over Ecuador and Honduras respectively. Their attack will be spearheaded by one of the revelations of the tournament, 22-year-old Shaqiri, who hit all three goals against Honduras to secure Switzerland’s qualification.

The winger, the first Swiss player to score multiple goals in a World Cup match since 1954, has hit the headlines after making just 10 league starts for Bayern Munich this season.

Switzerland have never beaten Argentina in six attempts. And they know all about Messi, who struck his first international hat-trick in their 3-1 friendly win in Bern in February 2012.

“We’ll prepare ourselves to face Messi, as well as their other players, but of course he has the quality to decide games,” said goalkeeper Diego Benaglio.

“It will be relatively hard to shut him out, but he’s not the only dangerous player in a very good team. Argentina don’t revolve just around Messi even though he’s their superstar. But we know all about the skills he has and it helps that we’ve seen a lot of him.”

Hitzfeld’s attacking options have been reduced by a cruciate knee ligament injury suffered in training by forward Mario Gavranovic, an unused substitute in all three group games.

Everything, including the ball, rolled in slow motion. Joel Campbell, the Costa Rican striker, had all but walked to the edge of the Greek box, before finding an uninterrupted pass back to the man jogging up the left wing, Christian Bolanos. With a single touch, Bolanos sought out his centrally-located captain, the slick-haired Bryan Ruiz.

Unmarked in enemy territory with four near-stationary Greece defenders ahead, Ruiz had enough time and space to choose just how he wished to find the back of the net.

His options were, a) dribble past the yawning defence and tap the ball in. Or, b) go for broke with a long-ranger. Ruiz weighed in his mind and scuffed up an improbable third, c), a cross between the first two choices — a tap in from 15 yards away.

When he finally brought down the hammer, Ruiz’s boot missed clipping the ball altogether. But the back of his shin didn’t. And then began the death-roll, the Brazuca gliding ever-so-gently past a wrong-footed Ioannis Maniatis, before teasing its way besides a leaden-legged Vasileios Torosidis.

Finally, in what seemed like an eternity, it sneaked past Greece goalie Orestis Karnezis as well.

Any slower, and the ball would’ve come to a grinding halt. Quite like the game itself.

The fans at the Arena Pernambuco weren’t happy. Not just because they had booked their tickets months in advance hoping to watch a Round of 16 match involving either Italy, England or Uruguay; but also due to the fact that the underdog flavour of this World Cup, Costa Rica, were far from their effervescent, bursting-with-energy selves. The Ruiz goal was the Central American side’s first ‘shot’ on target.

And that came in the 52nd minute of a dull, dull game.

Goal-shy Greeks

But the Costa Ricans had little to do with asphyxiating the contest. Not when ‘asphyxia’ is a Greek word in the first place; a most apt term to describe their strategy on the football field. Since the beginning of time (which, for long periods, this match felt like) Greece have believed in choking out their opposition before scoring a solitary goal on the counter. Precisely how they won Euro 2004, by netting the least number of goals ever to win a major championship. Consider this.

In all their World Cups put together, Greece had only scored goals in two matches before today — the first occasion was against Nigeria at Bloemfontein in 2010. And far more recently, against Ivory Coast in injury time of their final group game (a penalty no less) to make it thus far in the first place. It made someone tweet: “One day Greece will win a tournament without scoring a single goal.”

With the ageing Georgios Karagounis’s side still refusing to throw men upfront, Costa Rica only had to ensure that they did nothing stupid over the next 40 or so minutes to proceed to the quarters. But just 14 minutes later, stupidity had occurred in the form of a needless, studs-up tackle by the side’s one-man backline, Oscar Duarte. Duarte was shown his second yellow of the evening, reducing Costa Rica to 10 men. And even Greece couldn’t not take advantage of that.

As Costa Rica ran down an already run-down clock, moving time in frames, Greece brought on Theofanis Gekas, their 35-year old balding striker.

Bundle of chances

He wheeled ahead with Karagounis, Georgios Samaras and Konstantinos Mitroglou. Between the four of them, they had a bundle of chances. But in front of goal, Gekas blundered most of them (on one occasion, a rolling pass crashed against his unaware feet in a one-on-one position). And it was of one such blunder in ‘Greece time’ that the equaliser was scored.

Late strike

In the 92nd minute, with just seconds left on the clock, Gekas shanked his umpteenth attempt at goal.

Only this time, Costan Rica’s inspirational goalie Keylor Navas couldn’t hang on to the save. He punched it out back into the box, where the incredibly named Sokratis Papastathopoulos lurked.

Here was a Greek defender in the opposition’s defence. During such rare occurrences, extraordinary things tend to happen. Greece had scored the second goal of their campaign.

“Can we just skip straight to the penalty shoot-out?” former England striker Gary Lineker pleaded before extra-time on Twitter. They should’ve just listened to him, for nothing apart from yet another Gekas miss occurred over the next thirty minutes. And only for Gekas, nothing happened during the following penalty shoot-outs as well. It was enough to seal Greece’s snoozing fate. A revealing stat tells you that the last eight penalty shoot-outs in World Cups have been won by the team going first.

Greece traded that position for conducting the penalties at the end where their supporters stood in large numbers.

Those fans were largely silent as Costa Rica slotted in each of their five penalties, the fifth arriving immediately after Greece missed their fourth when Gekas was on the ball.

As the Greeks mourned on their knees, time crawled back to life.

France ended Nigeria’s hopes of a first World Cup quarterfinal appearance when they scored two late goals to beat the Super Eagles 2-0 in a rough and physical second-round match on Monday. Midfielder Paul Pogba put France ahead in the 79th minute, heading in at the far post after Nigeria goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama flapped at Mathieu Valbuena’s corner following a sustained spell of French pressure.

The win was sealed when Joseph Yobo turned a low cross into his own goal in stoppage time and France will play Germany or Algeria in the last eight.

It was a controversial victory, however, as the game had swung France’s way after Nigeria’s influential midfielder Ogenyi Onazi was injured and carried off following a late tackle from Blaise Matuidi, who was lucky to escape with only a yellow card. “I am very proud of everything we did from the start,” France coach Didier Deschamps said in a television interview.

“There was tension out there. They are a very strong side and there were a lot of duels. But we’re through. We’re in the quarterfinals and we’ll do everything we can to go a stage further.”

Pogba was elated after scoring such an important goal. “There are no words to describe this,” he said. “I know there is a whole country behind us. Scoring that goal really liberated us. I am so happy for the team and all France. I’m speechless.”

“To score a goal for your country, especially in an important match like this to get into the World Cup quarterfinals, it’s one of the best moments of my life.”

Nigeria had been defending increasingly desperately in the run-up to Pogba’s goal. France were centimetres from going ahead when Karim Benzema poked the ball past Enyeama, who managed to partly block his shot and Victor Moses hooked the ball off the line.

Nigeria escaped again when John Obi Mikel cleared Benzema’s shot off the line, then Yohan Cabaye struck the underside of the crossbar with a thunderous long-range strike. Enyeama then tipped Benzema’s close-range header over the bar, leading to the corner from which France scored their first goal. The first half had been much more even.

Nigeria made a bright start and thought they had gone ahead when Emmanuel Emenike turned in Ahmed Musa’s low cross at the near post but the effort was ruled offside in an extremely close call. Pogba was denied when he met Valbuena’s low cross from the right with a flying volley, only to be brilliantly denied by Enyeama who parried the ball away with a tremendous reflex save.

Nigeria produced some neat moves in midfield interspersed with basic unforced errors and Mikel was lucky to escape when he sliced Patrice Evra’s low cross towards his own goal and was relieved to see the ball land in Enyeama’s hands.

Nigeria should have gone ahead just before halftime when France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris parried Emenike’s fierce shot back into his area but Moses handled as he attempted to control the rebound.

Left-armer Trent Boult took 2-29 and fellow pacer Tim Southee grabbed 1-8 on Monday as New Zealand reduced West Indies to 72-3 at lunch on the fifth and final day of the decisive third Test.

New Zealand declared on its overnight score of 331-7 at Kensington Oval to leave the big-hitting hosts an enticing target of 308 in a possible 98 overs. West Indies ended the morning session needing another 236 runs to win.

Boult struck in his second over when Kraigg Brathwaite (6) played no stroke to a big inswinger and lost his off stump to make it 7-1. It was soon 23-2 when Boult dismissed Kirk Edwards for 10 with a low first slip catch by Ross Taylor.

Southee claimed the prize wicket of Chris Gayle (11) soon afterward as the powerful left-hander was bowled off pad and bat as he aimed an expansive drive.

With West Indies in trouble on 31-3, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and fellow left-hander Darren Bravo added an unbroken 41 over the next hour. Chanderpaul was unbeaten on 23 while Bravo hit 22 not out. Light rain sent the players off 30 minutes before the scheduled lunch interval and umpires chose to take an early break.

Brief scores: New Zealand 293 & 331/7 decl in 89.1 overs (K Williamson 161*, J Neesham 51, K Roach 4/55) vs West Indies 317 & 72-3 (at lunch) off 26.1 overs (Shivnarine Chanderpaul 23 not out, Darren Bravo 22 not out; Trent Boult 2-29, Tim Southee 1-8).

Title holder Andy Murray neutralised the big-swinging game of lofty South African Kevin Anderson to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals 6-4 6-3 7-6(6) on Monday.

The 27-year-old Briton returned sharply and drew the 2.03-metre (6’8″) Anderson into rallies to impose his game on the Wimbledon grass, where he is on a run of 17 successive victories.

Anderson, a career-high 18th in the world, broke Murray’s serve only once, after rain forced a pause for the Centre Court roof to be closed with Murray 3-0 up in the second set.

But he upped his game in the third set to force a tense tiebreak and even had a set point before Murray won three points in a row to reach his seventh successive Wimbledon quarter-final.

Murray will next meet either 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria or Leonardo Mayer of Argentina for a place in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, Canadian 20-year-old Eugenie Bouchard succeeded where Serena Williams failed as she beat Alize Cornet to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals. Frenchwoman Cornet caused a sensation on Saturday when she sent five-times champion and pre-tournament favourite Williams packing but Bouchard proved to be made of sterner stuff as she edged to a 7-6(5) 7-5 victory. The match was interrupted after five games to allow the Centre Court roof to close when more rain hit the championships after Saturday’s serious disruption.

Making up for lost time

Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, one of the victims of soggy Saturday when his match against Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin was washed out, made up for lost time with a rapid 6-3 6-3 6-4 win completed just before a heavy rain shower arrived.

Japan’s Kei Nishikori was detained even less as the 10th seed needed only four games to complete a 3-6 6-3 4-6 7-6(4) 6-4 victory over Simone Bolelli after their match had been suspended because of bad light on Saturday.

Spain’s Feliciano Lopez also belatedly reached the last 16, beating big-serving American John Isner in a four-set match that predictably included three tiebreaks.

Isner’s defeat ended U.S. interest in the singles after teenager Madison Keys was forced to withdraw on Monday with a leg injury before resuming her third-round match against Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova.

They had been locked at 6-6 in the second set when darkness fell on Saturday, after Shvedova had won the opener.

Shvedova will play last year’s runner-up Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round after the German claimed a stop-go 6-4 3-6 6-1 victory over 11th seed Ana Ivanovic.

The defeat of Williams blew a large hole in the women’s draw and Bouchard exploited it with a performance of grit and power against 25th seed Cornet to become the first Canadian to reach a Wimbledon singles quarter-final.

Having reached the semi-finals at both the Australian Open and French Open this year, Bouchard arrived at Wimbledon with the likes of former men’s champion John McEnroe tipping her as his dark horse for the women’s title.

She looked like she would be stretched into a third set when she trailed 5-3 in the second, but she continued her attacking style to claw back the deficit.

Serving at 5-6, Cornet tried in vain to hold off the Canadian trailblazer, rescuing one point after a nasty tumble, but fired a backhand long to succumb.

Paes-Black ousted

Leander Paes and Cara Black crashed out of the Wimbledon in the second round. The fourth seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair went down 6-1, 2-6, 3-6 to USA’s Eric Butorac and Hungarian Timea Babos. —PTI

Results: (Men’s round 4) 3-Andy Murray beat 20-Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(6); 26-Marin Cilic beat Jeremy Chardy 7-6(8), 6-4, 6-4; Round 3: 19-Feliciano Lopez beat 9-John Isner 6-7(8), 7-6(6), 7-6(3), 7-5; 5-Stanislas Wawrinka beat Denis Istomin 6-3, 6-3, 6-4; 10-Kei Nishikori beat Simone Bolelli 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-4

Women’s Round 4: 22-Ekaterina Makarova beat 4-Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3, 6-0; 6-Petra Kvitova beat Peng Shuai 6-3, 6-2; 13-Eugenie Bouchard beat 25-Alize Cornet 7-6(5), 7-5; Barbora Zahlavova Strycova beat 16-Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 7-5; 23-Lucie Safarova beat Tereza Smitkova 6-0, 6-2; Round 3: 19-Sabine Lisicki beat 11-Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-1; Yaroslava Shvedova beat Madison Keys (retd) 7-6(7), 6-6.