Brazil was the favorite, a vision in yellow and cobalt blue, a team of brilliant and unpredictable forwards. There were doubts about its defending, but this was a tribute to the old Brazil, to the Brazil of myth, the legend of 1970. Italy had been dreadful through the 1982 World Cup. It had drawn all three games in the first group stage. Only goals scored had carried it through ahead of Cameroon.
True, there had been glimpses against Argentina in its first game in the second phase, but Italy’s 2-1 win over the defending champions had been the result of Claudio Gentile’s brutal marking of Diego Maradona rather than anything more constructive.