Whenever there was a pause in Brazil's pre-match warm-up yesterday, their squad all began wiggling their hips like hula dancers. They would stretch, then dance; do some ball work, and some more ball work. It made for fascinating viewing, especially as AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Men At Work's Down Under were pumping through the Allianz-Arena at the time.
The players' body language was also telling. Ronaldinho, all toothy smiles and light on his feet. Adriano, at ease and happy to play the jester. Meanwhile Ronaldo - poor Ronaldo - shuffled stiffly, the weight clearly on both mind and midriff.
I felt for him. He has become the whipping boy for Brazil's poor performances so far in this World Cup, but his form and fitness are no great surprise: he's been fat and off-the-pace all season. What's more, the unrelenting 24-hour chatter that surrounds him masks bigger problems facing the seleção - especially the strange tactics of their coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, and the baffling anonymity of the world's greatest player, Ronaldinho.
What's going on with Parreira? He was the ultimate pragmatist when Brazil ground their way to victory at USA 94, but now he's morphed into Ossie Ardiles. There's almost no protection for the defence; Emerson looks like an old man and plays like one, while Ze Roberto is a winger not a fighter. What Gilberto Silva must have thought when Australia were running Brazil's midfield ragged, God only knows.
Parreira's decision to name his starting 11 for Germany two months before the tournament was also silly: it offered zero encouragement for his squad players, or for Ronaldo to discard his blubber suit.
The Brazil coach suffers from excessive loyalty, an admirable virtue in a man, but not in a big tournament manager. The World Cup is the ultimate rankings system, which tells you who's up, who's down and who's finished. To these eyes, Emerson is shot and Cafu and Roberto Carlos have lost their legs and their lungs. Yet they continue to be guaranteed a starting place, along with Adriano and Ronaldo, who both look nowhere near their best.
And then there's Ronaldinho. Brazil have too many glorious names and egos to let one man run the show, à la Diego Maradona in 1986, but we've seen very little from the world footballer of the year so far, save for a few slinky-hipped cameos and smiles for the camera.
Yesterday, admittedly, there was one brilliant jinking run, which ended when he was tackled by Crystal Palace's Tony Popovic, and a couple of nice throughballs. But you saw his match in microcosm at the end of the first half when, in a promising position, he stood on the ball. He will improve, surely. He will have to.
"The game was controlled by us, while Brazil had to counter-attack," Australia coach Guus Hiddink said afterwards. "For me that's not a characteristic of a world champion."
I couldn't agree more. Brazil have the squad to win Germany 2006, but they certainly won't do it with their current team.
