Swingin' Carlos restores out faith in Brazil

IT began with a swing to the right. Suddenly there was a significant shift back to the centre. And then? A swing to the left of such extraordinary proportions that, if it had been repeated in the General Election, Proinsias de Rossa would now be Taoiseach.

Pardon? THAT free kick by Roberto my mission in life is to make goalkeepers look silly Carlos for Brazil against France on Tuesday. And you had to feel sorry for the French goal-keeper, who must now be undergoing post-curly-wurly-free-kick-traumatic-distress counselling to help him get his lower jaw back to where it once was.

Sky Sport's George Gavin caught up with Fabien I swear, ze ball was heading for ze corner flag Barthez on Wednesday, to see how he was recovering. "I positioned the wall badly," he explained, but, as one English soccer writer put it last week, "he would have needed the Maginot line to stop it." George also spoke to Roberto about his goal but he just shrugged his shoulders in a `it was no big deal' kind of way. Indeed, on Wednesday night, Sky's Richard Keys showed us why our Roberto was so non-chalant about it all: film of a series of spookily similar swervy free-kicks he scored for Real Madrid last season.

"Of course viewer's of Sky Sports' Spanish Football wouldn't have been surprised by the goal," gloated Richard. ("Huh, we TOO have been showing Robert O'Carlos's bendy Cic Saors all season, every Monday night, 9.0 on Ole Ole," TnaG's marketing manager should have quickly phoned up to point out.) Sky commentator Alan Parry had certainly never seen anything like it in his life. "Aaaaaaghhhherrrooooaaaa," he squealed when it went in. If he'd had false teeth they would have fallen out at that moment.

There was nothing false about Big Ron Atkinson's prophetic words on ITV later that night, when they showed the highlights of the match. "Roberto Carlos can tonk 'em, can't he," he said as Roberto prepared for his 8.9 yard run up. "Look at the run up, Michael Holding eat your heart out," said commentator Clive Tyldesley. One second later. "WOOOOOOOAAAAAH, pick that out," howled Clive.

Of course for those of us who were brought up to go all melty at the knees at the mere sight of a yellow Brazilian shirt the goal reaffirmed our faith in the ability of that nation's footballers to thrill us. Many of us became lapsed Brazilians after the last World Cup. True, they won it, but they were about as exciting as Coventry City. Roberto's goal? Aaah, it was the Vatican II of Brazilian football. We believe once more.

(Mind you Roberto's free-kick was but a boringly straight toe-poke compared to the one viewers of a recent Frosties advertising campaign would have witnessed. A player from the team managed by Tony the Tiger hit one that was heading for Belfast, swerved towards Galway and finished up on the Banks of My Own Lovely Lee - ie, in the net. Now THAT was a Greeeeaaaat free-kick.) However, the real sporting hero of the week wasn't Roberto at all, it was a horse by the name of Benny The Dip - the winner of Saturday's Epsom Derby. And I'm glad he won, too, because such was the personal abuse showered on him during Channel Four's coverage of the big race he needs all the self-confidence he can muster.

It was bad enough that he was named after a thief and that his grandfather was christened with the less than manly title, Savage Bunny - he then had to listen to his trainer John Gosden describe him as a "hyperneurotic creature" and Johnny Francome label him a "schizophrenic".

But it got worse. Apparently, nasty people call him Benny The Drip because he has an unfortunate personal hygiene problem. "Do you worry when people call him Benny The Drip," Channel Four's Derek Thompson asked Gosden.

"No, I don't because he's a free sweater and I've met a lot of people in life who are very clever at making deals in the markets, or deals in any walk of life, who are free sweaters so don't mind. If that's your nature, behave with your nature," said Gosden.

It has to be said, Gosden seemed to be a peculiar creature himself. Take his conversation with Benny on the morning of the race. "He's a very excitable horse and he got very, very excited coming down to the races today," he told Derek.

"He was very, very bouncy in the box, kicking and he said: `I want to get on with the race now' but I told him: `We don't run the race at 10 o'clock in the morning, we run it at early four o'clock in the afternoon.' So he settled down." Mmm. Ten thousand votes short of a quota, methinks.

(And what about Benny's Ma. "The mother of this horse is now dead," explained John. "She died of old age, nothing unfortunate.") If Benny was a bit euphoric after winning the first £1 million Derby, it was nothing compared to the ecstasy levels found in the BBC commentary box at Edgbaston last Thursday when the English bowlers did on to the Australian batsmen what had been done on to English batsmen by Australian bowlers for the previous four Ashes series.

"So Shane Warne moves on to nine and he's really heading for a very important milestone double figures " chuckled Tony Lewis as the ENTIRE Australian batting line-up struggled to reach double figures. And who could blame Tony, or any other English cricket fan, for chuckling. Only a week before Malcolm Conn, a regular contributor on Sky Sports' Pavilion End, had written in The Australian: "Playing the beleaguered Poms is cheap and unfulfilling." Blush.

So happy was Tony he was even prepared to take on Geoff Boycott. "You have to accept Malcolm for what he is, for better or for worse a bit like marriage," said Geoff, after Devon had bowled a few wayward deliveries. "You're hardly qualified to talk about marriage," replied Tony. "You be quiet," responded bachelor Geoff. "I think some of the humour is a little heady because we can't believe this is going to continue, 12 years of being bashed about by Australia, suddenly we have a remarkable performance here," said heady Tony.

With that Aussie Richie Benaud (who looks more and more like yer man out of the Thunderbirds with every passing Ashes) took over the commentary, giving Tony and Geoff time to pinch themselves. Australia all out for 118? Heady days indeed for English cricket.