Zico the Destroyer!
Flamengo 3 Liverpool 0, 13th December 1981
Do you fancy re-living Flamengo’s demolition of a tired looking Liverpool team under the baking sun of Tokyo nearly 43 years ago as the Reds dreams of being crowned World Club Champions were cruelly dashed in a comprehensive and demoralising 3–0 defeat?
You do? Well please allow me to congratulate you on your fine choice of entertainment for roughly the next 7 or 8 minutes of your life!
Can I direct you to my Youtube video first as I continue to promote a book I’m immensely proud of, or would you rather just skip along to my rambling words instead?
I’ll leave the choice up to you and I’ll see you on the other side.
Flamengo 3 Liverpool 0
Toyota World Club Championship, 13th December 1981
This particular edition in our retrospective time machine of Liverpool Football Club matches takes us to Sunday 13th December 1981 and amid the din of air horns and Brazilian drummers, we join 62,000 others inside the vast open air bowl of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium for the Toyota sponsored World Club Championship, and yearly event contested between the European and South American Champions. Both the English and Brazilian Champions were hall of fame “Teams for the Ages”. The European Cup winning Liverpool team had changed a little with the addition of Bruce Grobbelaar in goal, Mark Lawrenson at left back and Australian International Craig “Skippy” Johnston making his competitive Reds debut here in Japan. But the legendary team around the new additions rolled off a fan’s tongue with ease: Phil Neal, Phil Thompson, Ray Kennedy and Terry McDermott (England internationals all) and the Scottish backbone of so many gloriously trophy laden years: Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish. On the other side of the ball was a South American Champion team from Brazil that oozed past, present and future footballing talent for both club and country: the majestic Junior and masterful ball playing adventurous central defender through a beautiful midfield of Tita, Adilio and Lico supplying the burly central striker Nunes and all orchestrated by the magician, future scorer of iconic goals in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups and the very epitome of the cliché laden “Number 10 player” or creative play maker, Zico.
Zico was indeed the destroyer in this High-Noon shootout in Japan, his quick, deft touches forever springing a midfield duel into a threatening attack and after just 12 minutes under the Tokyo midday sun he’d sprung a leak and a huge hole in the Liverpool defence, and the Flamengo team he captained so magnificently was a goal in front and never intending on looking back. The Brazilian team dominated from the kick off on a bone hard, yellow coloured, dry, fast and heavily bumpy pitch that looks, in retrospective, to be a nightmare to play on. Flamengo made light and beautiful work of the testing conditions whilst Liverpool truly laboured, and it was no surprise when the Brazilians opened the scoring on just 12 minutes, and what a stunningly beautiful goal it was too.
Started and finished by eventual goal scorer Nunes, this tells but a small piece of the overall tale as the ball was cycled front to back and forward once more, this time more progressively. Patient “keep ball” football, yet at progressive speed and two or three yards ahead of a tired looking and outclassed Liverpool. The goal scorer brilliantly back heels the back on the halfway line before continuing his run forward. Zico’s beautiful curling ball beats the leaping Phil Thompson and perfectly into the continuing run of Nunes who with the deftest of flicks with the outside of his right foot, guides the ball over an advancing Bruce Grobbelaar into the far corner of the Liverpool net. “Poetry in motion” is a song now beautifully attributed to my Liverpool Reds but here it’s perfectly apt. Controlled keep ball, cycling around the team, one touch and two touch incisive, progressive football before two touches of genius and a deserved one goal lead.
The Reds of Liverpool would be 3–0 down inside just 41 minutes, the cause a lost one and a dream dashed of becoming World Club Cup Champions for the first time, and all before the shrill of the Mexican referee’s half-time whistle. On the plus side of a dreadful and outclassed display was the competitive debut of Craig Johnston, playing in a squad numbered 16 shirt that also had the players names emblazoned on the back and some two decades before this very practice became commonplace in all competitive football. Whilst all around him in a Red shirt looked tired, leggy and at least a yard off the pace, “Skippy” as he was affectionately known for so many years and even now, was the Reds heartbeat, an effervescent energy of non stop running and a lone attacking threat. His solo fierce shot on the turn and crosses from the right wing provided the only tame half chances created by Liverpool in a first half they barely started and a second 45 minutes whereby Johnston again was the lone guiding light, a fierce left footed drive from the edge of the penalty area that forced the only save of note from the Flamengo goalkeeping custodian, Raul.
Graeme Souness saw a lot of the ball, Ray Kennedy and Terry McDermott too. But the Reds were in truth completely outclassed and the final heavy 3–0 score line could have been a lot worse.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
With Zico the beating heart of a Flamengo team playing their 77th competitive game of the season (this was Liverpool’s 26th), the Brazilian team were a yard faster, quicker and beautifully as well as cohesively collectively on form. The gulf in class was evident as another period of “keep ball” resulted in a crude foul by Terry McDermott on playmaker Tita, and a free-kick awarded in a dangerous area just outside the Reds penalty area. Brazil and Flamengo number 10 Zico smashed his free-kick around the Red defensive wall, Bruce Grobbelaar spilled the fierce drive and with the ball bouncing loose (pleasingly throwing up chalk dust from both the six yard line and goal line), Adilio forced home the resultant rebound.
7 minutes later, and with only 41 minutes on the game clock, Flamengo would score a devastating and deserved third goal and the game over as a contest before half-time. Again it was Zico. Again it was Nunes. And again it was a sublime goal that typified the gulf in class on this warm afternoon under a Japanese sun. Cycling the ball from defence into attack, the move would traverse the entire length of the Olympic Stadium pitch and three touches of perfection to see the ball Flamengo have coveted and treated so well end up again in the far corner of the Liverpool net yet again. Zico again was central with a defence splitting pass with the outside of his right foot, and perfectly into the forward run of the game’s first goal scorer Nunes. The tall, muscular striker takes a steadying touch as he advances into the Liverpool penalty before unleashing a powerful drive with his right foot past a stranded Bruce Grobbelaar in the Reds goal.
The scoreless second half was notable and memorable for three stand out chances for Flamengo to extend their already dominant lead, with Nunes being denied a World Club Cup Final hat-trick by a brilliant sprawling diving save from Bruce Grobbelaar as well as a desperate finger tipped flying save from the Zimbabwean goalkeeper to deny an incredible drive from well over 35 yards out from Andrade.
3–0 was a thrashing and it could have been a lot worse. Just 13 days later the Reds would concede 3 goals again, this time in a 3–1 defeat at home to Manchester City on Boxing Day and as a new year of 1982 loomed, the Reds of Liverpool would sit an incredibly lowly 12th position in the English 1st Division Championship.
1982 would see a dramatic change in fortunes for Liverpool as they would capture two trophies before a further two were snagged a year later, a treble of trophies in 1984 followed, including a famous European Cup Final victory in Rome, and a ticket for a return trip to Tokyo for another tilt at a World Club Cup Final.
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.