BRAZIL v Australia

The only venue I could find for Japan was sold out for the Croatia game. I had no choice but to miss my third game and try at a later date.

The good news was I could now get to the Brazil game as early as I wanted. Unfortunately I couldn’t have wanted to get there early enough. I’d known that London’s main Brazilian bar, in Covent Garden, had had to turn hundreds of people away from their opening match. So I got there 75 minutes before kick-off.

But their lacklustre performance against Croatia* hadn’t put anyone off. There was a large crowd of yellow shirts milling around outside in what I hoped was some sort of disorderly queue. But the bouncers confirmed my worst fears and I was forced to turn to Plan B.

As I trudged to the tube station I passed more and more yellow shirts and took some consolation from the fact that most of these Brazil fans looked even less Brazilian than me. I knew London’s West Indian community had always supported Brazil, at least until Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago started to qualify for the World Cup, but now it seemed everyone wanted to join the party.

Regular readers will be surprised that I had a Plan B, and now I was worried that it would also be full by the time I got there. Especially when I discovered that the Central Line was part-suspended for engineering works. I was so desperate that I decided to chance my luck with the Circle Line… on a Sunday.

I got to London’s original Brazilian neighbourhood 30 minutes before kick-off. The streets of Bayswater were also flooded with Brazil fans, most of whom looked just a little more, well, Brazilian than their Covent Garden counterparts.

I made my way to a restaurant where a friend and his Brazilian nephewfather had met Brazilian Arsenal midfielder Gilberto Silva. At least he wouldn’t be taking my seat at this game, since he had one on the bench in Germany. But there were plenty of other people to take my seat. The restaurant was full.

So I tried my luck in their basement, where I got a seat at the bar (although my view was slightly obstructed by green, yellow and blue balloons) and a bottle of Brahma.

This was the most authentic Brazilian experience I had found so far, and I was pleased when it started to fill up with unglamorous Brazilians (there being, of course, two types of Brazilians: glamorous and unglamorous).

And I was doubly pleased to find that, like me, they don’t believe the hype. They think Ronaldo’s fat and they despaired when Ronaldinho tripped over his own feet. They were underwhelmed by the big names’ uninspiring performances.

There was brief excitement, followed by disappointment, when Ronaldo spurned a couple of chances. And there was anguish when the big screen slowly rolled up into the ceiling and we were left with sound but no pictures. A man in a comedy yellow and green wig tried, but failed, to fix it, so we gatecrashed the restaurant.

The upstairs experience presented me with its own problems. I was standing near the kitchen where they serve plates of meat and chips, and I was sorely tempted. But I couldn’t justify the expenditure on a day on which I was only watching one game (having, thanks to the Togo disaster, already seen both France and South Korea, who were playing next).

Brazil boss Carlos Alberto Parreira must have put a rocket up his team at half time, because just three minutes into the second half the restaurant burst into relieved jubilation as Adriano put them ahead. There was much dancing for joy (except for a table of brave Aussies down the front), and bursting of piñata balloons by the staff.

The restaurant was sparked into life by the goal, and the biggest cheer was reserved for Robinho’s appearance as a substitute. But as Brazil edged towards a 1-0 victory and Australia created more and more chances, the excitement became tinged with a healthy dose of consternation, more huge cheers going up when Dida saved from Mark Bresciano.

But when Robinho smacked the ball against the post and Fred put away the rebound, there was another huge outburst of relieved celebration. Brazil were through to the second round.

*Kaká and Dida are exempt from any criticism, implied or otherwise, of the Brazil team.