Belo Horizonte, of course, is the city where Brazil suffered that astonishing 7-1 defeat by Germany in the semi-final of the last World Cup. And it is also playing an important part in the build-up to the next one. It was in Belo Horizonte that Neymar underwent surgery on Saturday in a bid to sort out his fractured metatarsal and get him back in time to shine in Russia this summer.
Rather than poisoned memories of four years ago, Brazilians would rather dwell on similarities with 2002, the fifth and, so far, last time they won the World Cup.
On that occasion Brazil went through a traumatic qualification campaign, flirting with disaster before booking their place in the final game. Part of the problem was the absence, for the entire course of the qualifiers, of star centre-forward Ronaldo, who was suffering from a knee injury so severe that some thought he would never again play top-class football. Certainly, Inter were struggling to get him back to fitness. So Brazil took over.
It was a similar story with Rivaldo. Barcelona were adamant that he was in no condition to play the World Cup. Again, Brazil took over. And Ronaldo and Rivaldo were arguably the best two players in the tournament as Brazil, winning all of their games, marched towards the trophy.
The 2002 World Cup stands as a great tribute to Brazil’s culture of sports medicine and physical preparation. The tournament was held earlier than usual – the kick-off was late May – in a bid to avoid the rainy season in Japan and South Korea. Europe’s Champions League had been expanded – there were two separate group phases. And so, for the star players, the European season had become more exhausting, and there was little time to recuperate before the World Cup.
This scenario helps to explain the bizarre results thrown up by that tournament. The big-name players and teams were simply not fit enough to do themselves justice. And so came the surprises. Turkey, who have not made it to any subsequent World Cups, reached the semi-finals, as did South Korea – admittedly with home advantage.
The pre-tournament favourites were Argentina and holders France. The Argentines lacked the sharpness to play the high intensity game that had been so impressive in qualification. And France, with Zinedine Zidane a limping passenger, crashed out without even scoring a goal. All those who had come through the European season were crawling their way through the World Cup.
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All, that is, with the exception of Brazil. Cafu and Roberto Carlos were still charging up and down the touchline like men possessed. Brazil, understanding the importance of the question, had paid extra attention to the nuances of physical preparation. They knew when to step up the workload – and when to ease off.
The last week before the big kick-off was the time to take it easy. Brazil’s coaching staff could hardly believe it when France, the team they most feared, played a high-pressure friendly against South Korea just a few days before the opening game – and it was here that Zidane picked up his fateful injury.
Brazil’s punishing domestic calendar proved an aid. Accustomed to the task of ensuring top players were fit to play on a regular basis, Brazil’s physical preparation specialists had become masters in the arts of drawing up individualised training schedules. In comparison, they looked on the work being done in Europe as absurdly primitive.
There is history here. When Brazil first won the World Cup back in 1958, they took with them to Sweden a back-up staff including doctors, dentists, physical preparation specialists and even a (premature, as it turns out) experiment with a psychologist. By way of comparison, England went to the 1962 World Cup in Chile without so much as a doctor.
In the post-mortem after their failure in 1966, one of the factors identified by Brazil was that their psychical preparation specialist came from a background of martial arts rather than football. By 1970 they were back on track again, preparing for the altitude of Mexico City (where they would only play one game) with a training programme using techniques developed by NASA, the US space agency.
There is considerable tradition, then, in Neymar’s option to head for home to undergo his operation. And now that appears to be out of this season’s Champions League, the only stage left to push his claims as the best player on the planet is the 2018 World Cup.
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