Even when it is empty, Celtic Park draws supporters, like worshippers congregating at a shrine. But this gathering is different. They are here for a reason. Word has spread that Juninho has finally signed for the club and they have come, some after work, some while supposed to still be at work, to welcome him. All summer they have waited for a new hero to arrive and now they are desperate to embrace him.
For Juninho, it is a brief encounter with the adulation that his presence will inflate. Henrik Larsson’s departure has left a vacuum, and he is the player who has come to fill it. Sitting alongside the manager, Juninho seems a slight presence, his frame almost boyishly slim. Can such a slender body bear the weight of so much expectation? Eventually, he is led downstairs and out the stadium. A ripple of excitement slips through the crowd and they surge up against the green barriers that stand in front of the entrance. Some shout his name, others begin to sing when he holds up a Celtic scarf. At the rear of the throng, a supporter raises both his arms in the air. On the back of his shirt is the No 7 and ‘Juninho’. The King has gone, long live the new King.
IT WAS while he was preparing for his summer holiday that Juninho learned his fate. Despite helping Middlesbrough to 11th in the Premiership and victory in the Carling Cup final, the Brazilian was no longer required. Steve McLaren had decided to change to a 4-4-2 formation and he did not envisage a role in the side for the little midfielder.
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“I was surprised because the way that we played last season, we won the Cup and (qualified) for European football,” Juninho says with a quizzical frown. “Then he told me that he’d changed his mind and he didn’t think I’d fit in. I don’t agree with that.”
He is wearing a pale denim shirt that seems to hang off his narrow shoulders. His brown eyes are deep set. His angular face, with its long, sloping, jaw line, narrow chin and hollow cheeks, suggests the fragility of china. Yet his features are swallowed by the breadth of his smile, a wide, animated expression that reveals teeth as white as snow.
Juninho realised when he was left out of the squad for the first game of the season that his time at Middlesbrough was up. His return to the club from Atletico Madrid in 2002 was said to be precipitated by the chairman, Steve Gibson, rather than McLaren and with Ray Parlour, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Mark Viduka arriving during the close season, Juninho was no longer the most high-profile player.
In the same way that O’Neill made the most of Chris Sutton’s unhappiness at Chelsea, John Hartson’s reputation for being injury-prone, Stan Varga’s desire to find a new club, the manager has moved for a player who needs a fresh start, a player who needs to resurrect his reputation. Having paid no fee — Celtic have simply taken on the final two years of his Middlesbrough contract — he has nothing to lose on this occasion. For Juninho, it is a new stage. At 31, he has a new audience to thrill.
“I’m not here to prove myself to Steve (McLaren) or to anyone, I’m just here to try to play my best football,” he adds. “Of course, when you have support from the manager, you feel more confident and I think your football can prove even better. When you don’t have that support, you feel pressure and you try to over (impress). And then maybe it doesn’t work.”
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THE teenage Juninho was forced to become acquainted with rejection. At club academy after club academy, coaches noted his talent but were put off by his lack of height. He eventually joined Ituano, a part-time team, in 1992 and repaid their faith with a sparkling haul of goals. It wasn’t long before Sao Paulo recognised their mistake and Tele Santana, who coached Brazil’s 1982 World Cup team, signed the midfielder and put him on a special diet and a weights programme. But the strength that comes from within is often more potent than the muscles that wrap the skeleton.
It was his core of resilience that allowed Juninho to overcome the doubts of others. “Who’s the schoolboy wearing Pele’s shirt?” asked Dunga when Juninho was first called up to the national team. Yet the Brazil captain would later apologise after spending time in the company of his twinkling talent. Flitting around the field with the wispish delight of a firefly, Juninho was soon compared to Zico.
He became Brazil’s young player of the year before Bryan Robson persuaded him to move to England. A type of stirring fever gripped Middlesbrough when he made his debut, the newly-formed 50-piece Billingham Samba Band were at the Riverside and hundreds in the crowd wore sombreros. Accompanied by Oswaldo, who is also his agent, Lucia, his mum, and Gislene, his sister, he settled into his new surroundings with unexpected ease.
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In his second season, he scored 15 goals and made 38 assists, the exuberant force in the team that also contained Fabrizio Ravanelli and Emerson. Middlesbrough reached two cup finals, only to lose them both, and for all Juninho’s sustained effectiveness, one man alone could not stem the fall to the First Division. With France 1998 looming the following summer, he was advised to leave for the sake of his international career and a £12m deal saw him move to Atletico Madrid.
Technique is no shield to misfortune. Juninho broke his ankle during his first season in Spain and, when he returned, he found himself out of favour with Arrigo Sacchi and then Claudio Ranieri, the managers who came after Raddy Antic. In 1999 he returned to the Riverside on loan, but failed to recapture his form, and further temporary spells followed at Vasco de Gama and Flamengo.
In effect, his most productive season outside Brazil remains the 1996/97 campaign, when he skipped through English football like an imp, and the Middlesbrough fans voted him their player of the century. In the summer of 2002, a poll appeared on the club website asking “would you like to see Juninho back in a Boro shirt?” Within 48 hours, 4000 fans had responded yes and Gibson had brought him back. “On Teesside,” said Bob Fisher of the Fly Me To The Moon fanzine, “he’s a God.”
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HOW do you incorporate such a singular, individualistic talent into a well-defined team framework? O’Neill admits his defensive resources are meagre, which may precipitate a return to 3-5-2, with Juninho darting around in behind the strikers. He is the kind of player who moves to the whims of his intuition. So where is his best position? “It’s up to the manager to see where he can best play you, but I think I have the skills to play in all positions,” he answers. “Of course, my position has always been behind the strikers, but wherever I play I will adapt.”
It is his ability to sprinkle some unpredictability into Celtic’s play that has attracted O’Neill. The Champions League brings tight games when something special is often required to make a difference. “One thing that attracts all players is the Champions League,” Juninho grins. “I have never played in it, just the Uefa Cup, so it will be a new experience for me. Celtic have been playing it every year and doing very well and I hope to continue the success.”
Juninho has already had an impact on the Celtic squad, with the atmosphere at training lifted by his arrival. “You can see he’s a quality player,” says Aiden McGeady, one of the youngsters O’Neill believes will benefit from the Brazilian’s proximity. “Since Lubo (Moravcik) left, we’ve not really had a player like that.”
With his work permit successfully cleared, Juninho is eager to make his debut in today’s Old Firm encounter. Viduka, the former Celtic striker, has told him of the atmosphere and, having watched some of the encounters on television, he is aware of what to expect. With Chris Sutton an injury doubt, Juninho could start.
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“Ideally, I would have preferred him to have had a look at things here for a little while, done a little bit of training with the team,” O’Neill admits. “But I balance that against the sort of experience he has. We’ll have a look. If he has to start the game, then he’ll have to start it.”
And what of the supporters? What of their shuddering cravings for a new hero and the club’s need for a new talismanic figure? “In football today it’s not one player who wins matches, it’s all 11,” Juninho says. “I want to do my best at the club. But I hope, of course, to give the fans what they expect.”
At the Celtic shop, copies of Larsson’s video, The Bhoy Who Would Be King, were on sale at a reduced price. That is how it is in football, the game moves on in the blink of an eye. It is Juninho’s time now.