Brazil are missing a beat, just like Paul McCartney But in fact Brazil have not been Brazil for an aeon, and the only thing that can explain all the pre-match hype - and the post-match temptation to see the seeds of an England revival in the result - is the potency of those memories. It is in fact more than 30 years, after all, since Brazil were truly Brazil, which is not to suggest that the victors at two World Cups since were not fine teams, or that the likes of Ronaldo, Romario, Rivaldo and the young Ronaldinho, whose youthful allure was hard to discern this week, did not remind us of their predecessors with moments of individual and collective brilliance. No Brazilian team ever disgraced itself to the extent of The Frog Chorus. Yet one needs to go back as far as 1982 for the last Brazilian team who electrified with the beauty of their football. Heretical as this is given the cavalier disdain to defend that robbed them of their destiny, the side of Socrates, Falcao, Eder and Zico remain the best, or at least the most gorgeous, I ever saw. The 1986 vintage showed the same artistry but was narrowly over the hill, and every manifestation since has been essentially Europeanised. No one has been as influential over the past two decades as Dunga, the stolid and effective defensive midfield juggernaut who led a dull side to the 1994 World Cup as captain, and managed another that flattered to deceive to a quarter-final defeat in 2010. If the team fielded by the similarly pragmatic "Phil" Scolari on Wednesday seemed set up to attack, they still contained the requisite pair of holding midfielders. There are various theories for the metamorphosis to a style predicated on physical power and the counter-attack, the two most obvious being that by the Nineties all the brightest stars were migrating to Spain and Italy, and were moulded there; and the authorities" conviction, perhaps a little derided of late by the Spanish, that the small, clever, creative midfielder had become terminally outmoded. Me, being a pretentious git, I wonder whether Brazil's emergence as an economic power has deposited a desire for gravitas and responsibility which osmotically translates itself on to the pitch. Whatever the explanation, and for all the odd flash of brilliance from Neymar and Oscar, Wednesday's performance underscored a judgment which only the roseate contact lenses of mythology previously disguised. The last rites have latterly been read as the national side have cascaded down the Fifa world rankings and the domestic game become more shambolic, but the death of Brazilian football is obviously exaggerated. They still have the talent to give them a decent shot (though with Spain and Lionel Messi's Argentina in the field, not a favourite's) when they host next year's World Cup. Even if they fail there, the peerless passion for football of a vast population and the burgeoning national wealth ensures that they will come again. For now, however, and one gloomily suspects for always, the music metaphorically serenading wearers of the gold and blue strip is not the samba but a certain Jubilee concert headliner's wistful paean to the carefree delights of the distant past, Yesterday.