Gilberto sneaks out of Sao Paulo airport
July 4, 2006
Brazil fans jeer national team on their return
The Brazilian team were greeted by jeers from fans as they arrived on Monday in Sao Paulo following their World Cup exit.
Only Marcos Evangelista de Moraes (Cafu), Cris and Mineiro stayed to face the music. Ricardinho, Rogerio Ceni, Robson de Souza (Robinho), Luisao, Cicinho, Fred and Gilberto Silva, sneaked out of the airport through a different terminal, according to local reports.
Fans chanted “greybeard” and “grandad” at Cafu, 35, telling him to retire. Cafu told waiting media that he will consider whether to retire, but he would first meet with his family and watch the World Cup finals with them.
“Then I will think calmly about my future in the team. I am always willing to help them,” he said.
“We lost because we as a team did not know how to act after conceding a goal: we did not have strength. The lesson we learned was that it is not always the best to win. We are considered the best, and we gave a show, but other teams surprised us,” he said.
He added that despite losing a game, they had not turned the current generation of Brazilian football into losers.
“In the last four World Cups we have reached the finals three times and won two of those finals,”he said.
Brazil had been heavily favored to retain the world title but their title defense came to a surprising end following a 1-0 defeat to France at the quarter-finals.
It is the Brazilian way; only victory is good enough. It’s a shame that the players did not want to face the public at the airport, but the jeers combined with their personal disapointment was probably too much.
On the France game, Gilberto had this to say:
It’s very hard when you lose a game like that. You make your plans, make a lot of sacrifices to make everyone happy in your country and everyone ends up very disappointed. It’s going to be very difficult to sleep. We didn’t play our best game against France and the result was terrible.
France were much better, they were stronger in all parts of the pitch and we feel very sorry for the people back home. It’s not that we played badly, we tried but it just didn’t work. They were very well organised but we didn’t manage to score a goal. I can’t remember exactly what Parreira said in the dressing room after the game, but it was words of sadness.