(Photo extracted from thesun.co.uk)
Final whistle blown, the team in red punched their fists in the air and jumped in celebration. Iran has just sent the five-times World Champion packing home after a 3-2 penalty kick victory after the Round of 16 game ended in a thrilling 4-4 draw.
However, instead of huddling together to celebrate the famous victory, the Iranians went over to Falcao, Brazil’s number-12 and did the amazing and heartwarming thing – they gathered around Falcao, showed their own farewells and threw the futsal legend into the air in celebration of the contribution he has given in the name of futsal!
What more could a legend of his caliber asked for to have the entire opposition team came showing their appreciation where they should be celebrating a famous victory by kicking the world champion out of the tournament minutes ago?
Falcao, who’s real name is Alessandro Rosa Vieira, was born in Brazil in 1977. The 39 years old futsal player has graced many tournaments as player and guest player around the world. Having represented Brazil for more than 200 times and scoring near 340 goals since 1998, this name Falcao is constantly on the lip of everyone in the futsal fraternity.
As a great admirer of this futsal legend too, we traveled to Thailand in 2012 for the FIFA Futsal World Cup where we had the opportunity to watch Falcao in live action. Although the injured Falcao did not feature much during the group games, he did come on as a substitute in the opening game against the Japanese at Korat Chatchai Hall in Nakhon Ratchasima.
We were extremely excited to see the Brazil’s Number-12 coming on late in the game although we all knew that he was nursing an injury. In all honesty, although we really hoped to see Falcao in action, we were not expecting the injured or recovering key player to be thrown into the game, for that instance an opening game that early.
Every touch and pass he made, it looked perfect in our eyes which we classified as Pure Class. We just couldn’t thank our Lady Luck enough that we really did get this rare opportunity, in this part of the world (Asia), to watch Falcao in live action!
Eventually, the night in Nakhon Ratchasima was still painted in yellow – the Brazilians cruised pass the Japanese convincingly with a 4-1 score line in front of 4,298 futsal lovers.
Now that Falcao has retired from international game, we believe we will still get to see him in action in different part of the world. The ideal of getting to see him in action still gives us the uncontrollable excitement. And we hope that this excitement would happen soon. Real soon.
More images of our visit to FIFA Futsal World Cup 2012, Click Here.
Video clip of Falcao’s Goals & Skills, Click Here.
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