More than 100 years of audacious long-range lobs and gravity-defying free-kicks later, it is the English who are looking the other way for inspiration. Had Miller's missionary zeal extended instead to cricket or the oval ball game, then perhaps the whole of football history would have been different.

England might have had three World Cup triumphs to their credit, maintaining their position as the gatekeepers of a global game they claimed to have invented on the playing fields of Eton.

But while David Seaman may beg to differ, we ought not to be too harsh on Miller for single-handedly wresting about half a century of world football domination from our grasp. Instead we should marvel at the generations of men in gold and blue who have gone on to provide us with countless dazzling memories of football the way it was meant to be played.

From a teenage Pele in Sweden in 1958 through Zico and Ronaldo to Ronaldinho, Robinho and the rest of the stars who will shine in Germany in 2006, it has long been the Brazilians whom the rest of the world has sought to emulate. They have provided the international game's most indelible memories through five World Cup triumphs with stars whose names roll off the tongue:

Jairzinho, Garrincha, Carlos Alberto. Small wonder that most Brazilian supporters have come to regard their brand of flamboyant attacking football not so much as a means to obtaining future success, but as a birthright. Sven-Goran Eriksson may seek good points from a qualifying draw with Austria, and shrug off a friendly thrashing in Denmark as an experimental affair. But for Brazilians every defeat is a national disaster, and often even victory itself is not enough.

Consider Carlos Alberto Parreira, who was widely vilified for his tactics during the 1994 World Cup in the United States despite the fact that Brazil went on to claim their fourth tournament triumph via a penalty shoot-out. Parreira, who resigned after the competition and vowed never to coach the Brazilian national team again, has reversed his decision and will lead them to Germany next year.