Being punished by Zico for a 2am burger!

THERE were two players I could never get close to in my career, one was England World Cup winner Alan Ball, the other was Zico, the great Brazilian. Playing for Scotland I had what you could call the misfortune of facing the Brazil side of 1982, probably the greatest side not to win a World Cup. It was 84 degrees in Seville, it was an evening kick off but the sun was still out. We had gone out for our warm-up and came back covered in sweat. We went back to the changing rooms to cool off then came out for kick off and the anthems. I look down the line at our team and see various bodies, some extremely white, some with red hair and every one soaking with sweat. We looked like we had just finished the game. I turned the other way towards Socrates, Brazil’s captain, and saw a row of tanned, immaculate individuals who looked like they had just stepped out of Marks & Spencer’s shop window... not a bead of sweat on any of them. I knew we’d be in for a difficult evening. David Narey then made the mistake of scoring first which upset them and they beat us 4-1. I was playing against some truly great Brazilians that day and one of them was Zico, who scored their first goal and pulled the strings. I’d had experience of him months earlier when he was man of the match for Flamengo against Liverpool in what was known as the Intercontinental Cup, now the Club World Cup. It wasn’t taken as seriously as it is now or certainly not by us then. We had an extremely sociable 16-hour flight to Tokyo so when we arrived we were not in the best of nick. The night before the game I’m sharing a room with Kenny Dalglish when I wake up at 2am starving. Kenny felt the same so we order burger and chips, then can’t sleep. I look out the window and see bright lights which on closer inspection is a driving range. Kenny loves his golf so he needed little encouragement. We go across and get ourselves set to strike a few balls when we hear a few rowdy English voices. It was the rest of the team. They couldn’t sleep either and brought over a few beers. It was all very enjoyable but it didn’t serve us too well as Zico and Co ran out 3-0 winners.