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‘Lifting the golden trophy is incredible’: Roberto Carlos on what it means to win a World Cup
It will be at least another four years before a Brazilian gets to follow in Roberto Carlos’ footsteps and hold aloft football’s most prestigious prize, but as he tells RT's Stan Collymore, it's the most unique feeling in the game.
Carlos has one of the most famous left boots in football history. Twenty-one years ago the Brazilian scored a physics-defying free-kick in a match against France, but the most surprising thing about that particular wonder-strike was that he didn’t even practice it.
“I would kick past the wall, or over it,” he explains. “And if I had to kick from here I would kick to the other side to set up Cafu or Panucci. But from here to here, never. Never practiced that, never kick the ball to this side, always to the center.
“People sometimes ask me if I practiced that free-kick but I never did, I always kicked over the wall.”
That Brazilian team would experience World Cup heartbreak a year later, losing 3-0 to hosts France in the Parisian final, but they would make amends in 2002, lifting the trophy in the South Korea/Japan World Cup.
The memories of this are the proudest of Carlos’ career.
“Yes [it feels like a dream],” he says. “I have a picture hugging the trophy like this, an incredible picture taken in a dressing room, and I’ve put it up in a large frame in Brazil.
“It was a dream come true. Winning the Champions League, the Copa America, the Club World Cup; but being a World Cup champion for your country? It’s an outstanding achievement for a footballer.
“Playing at a World Cup is great but winning and lifting the golden trophy is incredible.”