A Stain on the Beautiful Game

You

can always rely on the first round of the World Cup to deliver a slate of Things We Never Thought We'd See: France being outplayed by Senegal, Germany scoring eight goals in a game, Japan scoring any goals at all, the Yanks beating Luis Figo's Portugal, and English fans behaving themselves. Too bad, then, that for football romantics everywhere, the lingering image of the tournament's first week is the Thing We Hoped Never To See: a Brazilian cheat.

	2002 FIFA World Cup Special Coverage from TIME Brazil Carves Up Turkey Weblog: Germany vs. Brazil equals a clash of football cultures • Meet TIME's World Cup squad --> The Ultimate Samba Brazil beats Germany 2-0 to cap a World Cup 2002 filled with upsets, controversy and human drama The Final Tally Assessing the good, the bad and the ugly of the Cup that was The Morning After South Korea and Japan must now ponder if the World Cup was worth footing the bill Moving on Up TIME analyzes some of those players who excelled and looks at how they increased their market value Why Some Teams Just Can't Win Although the pre-Cup form book predicted otherwise, Brazil and Germany — the usual suspects — turned up in the final more stories >>

Rivaldo's "My eyes! My eyes!" performance in Brazil's opener against Turkey ranks alongside Argentine Diego Maradona's 1986 "Hand of God" goal and West German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher's 1982 mugging of France's Patrick Battison in football's Hall of Shame. In my book, the Brazilian's offense is the greater for being so pointless: it was injury time at the end of the match, his side was already a goal up and the Turks a man down from an earlier red-card incident. Rivaldo gained nothing from having a second opponent sent off. He can't claim—as Maradona and Schumacher could, and did—that his action (or acting) was necessary to win his country the game.

But wait: Is it O.K. to play unfair in order to win? Yes, says the captain of England, the country that was on the receiving end of Maradona's sneakiness—and has never stopped moaning about it. David Beckham said Wednesday that England must learn to cheat more: "We're too honest ... We are not cunning enough." Asked if he would do a Maradona for Queen and country, the Manchester United star turned coy: "To win the game? Yes ... No ... I don't know. I'll let you answer that."

There were altogether too many other examples of players behaving badly during week one, on the field and off it. Red cards for Turkey's Alpay Ozalan and Hakan Unsal, Croatia's Boris Zivkovic, France's Thierry Henry, Senegal's Salif Diao. Slovenia's best player, Zlatko Zahovic, channeled Roy Keane and shouted obscenities at his coach; like the Irish captain, he was promptly sent home.

So why pick on Rivaldo and his theatrics? Because he's a Brazilian, because he represents a nation that glories in the Beautiful Game (a term coined by the most illustrious Brazilian to wear the No. 10 shirt now donned by Rivaldo: Pelé) and prides itself on playing fair and with panache. That is why Brazil is always the favorite of the neutral football fan at any World Cup. It deserves to be held to a higher standard.

To compound an already ugly situation, Rivaldo's coach and teammates rallied to his defense. Diminutive left back Roberto Carlos claimed he had himself faked "many fouls and penalties. To fool referees." This is especially distressing because it's not even true. Carlos, the ever-smiling purveyor of incredible free kicks, is a genuine Mr. Clean. He doesn't resort to underhanded tactics to gain advantage over an opponent; in fact, he has even been criticized for not employing his elbows as deftly as that fearsome left foot. When saints pretend to be sinners, something is terribly wrong.

This World Cup was preceded by pious declarations from FIFA that referees would crack down on playacting by footballers. And yet the sport's governing body—which itself has displayed some deplorable behavior off field in the lead-up to Sepp Blatter's re-election as president—only fined Rivaldo a piffling $7,300. For years now, FIFA has been pressuring referees to protect "flair" players like Rivaldo by handing out harsh punishment to defenders who try to mow them down. The punishment for taking unfair advantage of such protection should be equally uncompromising. He should have been suspended for at least two matches.

Instead, FIFA merely issued a warning and demanded that Rivaldo part with less than his daily wage at FC Barcelona. You might have expected the player to react to this limp slap on his wrist by slumping to the ground, clutching his throat. But no, he responded with a shrug. "No regrets," he said. "This is going to happen a lot at this World Cup."

The dreadful truth is that the cheating Brazilian may be very right about being so wrong.