Finally, the adventure has come to an end and the World Cup final players and fans began to return home yesterday.
Ronaldo and Brazil reclaimed soccer's top spot with a two goal to nothing lesson for Germany, which will nevertheless be pleased with its performance throughout the tournament and brimming with optimism when it hosts the World Cup in four year's time.
PHOTO: AFP
Brazil, for its part, will add another star to the four it already has on its soccer confederation logo and will celebrate until it is time to do battle once more, in the Copa America and at the Olympic Games in two year's time.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Early yesterday morning the Prince Hotel in Yokohama, where the Brazil team has been staying, was still ringing with the inebriated sounds of victory.
For Brazilian fans Albert and Marco, Cloves Fernanadez and others, the road to soccer's Holy Grail has been long and rewarding and this was the time to savor it.
Albert and Marco had followed their team in South Korea and Japan and had beaten all the odds just to get tickets for the final.
They had arrived at the Tokyo Forum last Friday to collect a ticket out of the 3,200 that FIFA released, only to find over 6,000 people in line for them. It was madness, with Brazilians attacking the police with chairs at one point.
Even so, our intrepid duo managed to worm their way to the front of the line by telling security they had been waiting since 7am in the morning but had returned to their hotel to collect their passes. Bogus cards with FIFA on them and stories about being FIFA marketers also helped.
Having jumped the queue they discovered they did not have a form for tickets that had been distributed hours previously. No problem, they borrowed a form, went to a convenience store and made thirty copies, selling each for ?10,000 (around NT$3,000) to other fans without forms in the queue.
Category one tickets for US$350 quickly sold out, leaving just category two (US$500) and category three (US$750). Then there was an announcement that only those who had made it through the main doors would be eligible for category three tickets.
Albert managed to make his way past the police guarding the doors through a diversion of Marco. Then he was able to return to those behind the door -- as a "tour group leader -- and gather 30 passports and US$15,000 from complete strangers who begged him to get tickets.
Accepting just ?10,000 each to help his fellow fans, Albert and Marco had arrived at the ticket office with just enough money for one ticket, but managed to buy three.
On the day of the final they sold these three tickets for US$2,000 each and they still managed to get into the game.
"We Brazilians live by our wits and this is how we win. We are all aventurreros and the World Cup is our greatest adventure," Albert told the Taipei Times.
"Anyone can go to the World Cup and do what we have done, you just need to want to do it."
Enjoying the five-star luxury of the Prince Hotel and its unpaid-for room service, in the company of Cloves Fernandez -- still carrying a replica World Cup which had never left his side throughout the tournament -- they toasted their team.
Everything had worked out as they had hoped and now they would enjoy some sightseeing in Japan and return home to plan their next great adventure against Germany, once more, in four years time.
The aventurrero continues.
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