Arms were thrown in the air. Heads shook fondly. A thousand Sunday paper intros were scrapped from the screens and hastily rewritten. In Marseille, this crazy competition had taken another jackknife twist.
As the Dutch piled upon each other like a bowl of tangerines spilt in the corner of the green Velodrome, more than one sated scribe noted that the World Cup is departing the twentieth century in grand style, the beautiful game firming up its grip on this globe's sporting imagination.
Indeed. Four games left and some 60 games put away. It might be safe to say that a distinct pattern has now emerged from all the frenzy. Nike are beating Adidas but Lotto have done surprisingly well.
Lotto dressed just two teams in this World Cup, Tunisia and Croatia. They have got a semi-final appearance at least out of a modest investment of thread. It has been a good competition for them, defying the odds and stitching together some fine results.
Croatia making the semi-final makes the point about calling the firm something silly like Lotto. They invested in the crap and the war weary and it paid off big time. (There is a lesson there for O'Neill's vis-a-vis the Antrim footballers, surely)
Of the traditional powers, Nike, who swooshed out six teams (Brazil, Holland, USA, Italy, Nigeria and South Korea), played the geographical spread cautiously and for their troubles have an all-Nike semi-final tomorrow in Marseille when Holland and Brazil just do it.
Using the glamour index, Nike have done well. Nigeria swept a lot of people off their feet when beating Spain (Adidas, hah!) in the first round. We can take it as a sign of their growing sophistication and influence that the Nigerians had been Niked-up while the other African nations chafed in less known brands.
(The Indomitable Pumas of Morocco, the Big Pumas of the Atlas from Cameroon, the Soaring Lottos of the Earth from Tunisia and the Naff Kappas of the Cape, South Africa, all went home after the first round.)
Nike's success has spawned much celebration in shanty towns from Guatamala to Indonesia and Nike employees are looking forward to major bonuses like air conditioning and the 12-hour day.
Adidas, a competition sponsor and draper to seven of the teams (Germany, Argentina, Spain, France, Japan, Romania and Yugoslavia) were slightly more Euro-centric in their investments and are now relying on France to go all the way.
If the French carry the Knights of Three Stripes into battle against the House of Swoosh in the final, there will be rejoicing.
Adidas suffered an early knock in the tournament when Eric Cantona took time off from his important acting career to allege that if Ibrahim Ba had endorsed Adidas instead of Nike products, he would have been selected to play for France. Cantona knows a thing or two about mass marketed individualism and Ba's daringly idiosyncratic choice of a Nike endorsement deal was, he suggested, too much for the French who as we all know are terminally in thrall to German kit manufacturers.
If France win through, subsequent Adidas campaigns can be expected to promote the possibilities of good defending and efficient penalty taking while wearing Three Stripes gear.
What a thoroughly lamentable performance from Puma (Austria, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Iran and Morocco. Holy God!). They couldn't even nail down the Argentinians who invitingly call themselves the Pumas. Talk about a come-and-get-me offer.
Puma didn't manage to get a team into the second round. Steps must be taken. FIFA will have to review Puma's allocation of teams for the next competition, ceding places to Lotto. Puma themselves should consider moving the logo to the back of the shirt so we can all see it when the defenders are looking at the ball entering their own net.
Umbro had a dowdy competition but what did they expect. They sponsored England, Norway and Scotland. The Scots fans, tight as the stereotype suggests, chose to buy replica kilts and shortbread instead. The Norwegians were easily the most unpopular team in the tournament and the only cheering Umbro executives heard was when we finally saw the back of their shirts.
There was worse, though. English replica jerseys gained widespread exposure in the many front-page pictures illustrating English fans throwing bottles, being coshed and stabbing Argentinians. Oh, and some back-page pictures of a team who despite having been eliminated on penalty shoot-outs in two major competitions this decade, still thought it was silly to practice penalties.
The FIFA Fair Play To Yis Award goes to Hummel who took a break from making porcelain figurines to kit out the Danes. With just one team in the tournament, Hummel got to play Nigeria, France and Brazil in three huge profile games, two of which they lost. A superb dividend which must make Diadora (Belgium) and Shamel (Saudi Arabia) sick as parrots. Shamel? Nice team. Shamel about the shirts.
The other one-team outfitter ABA Sport, who dressed the Mexicans, had less of the limelight but cleverly used the dyed hair and bleached teeth of Hernandez to draw attention to their product. Their reverse take-over of Adidas was only foiled by late goals from Bierhof and Klinnsmann.
Reebok had a quietly effective tournament, adventurously betting their shirts on a few long shots. Colombia were disappointing and next time Reebok will just sponsor Valderamma's hair. Still, nobody died.
Chile on the other hand were exciting and made it to the second round with those two strikers who became household names.
The real find of the competition was Paraguay, though, who, with no hope of winning the tournament, nobly gave maximum exposure to their shirts. Their tactics will be studied by kit manufacturers for years to come. Pick an avowedly extrovert goalkeeper (in this case Chilavert whom cameras focus on and witty commentators call El Loco). Then put the other 10 players standing just in front of him for 90 minutes of every game. The screen was filled with Reeboks all the time. "Better than sex," said a Reebok executive.
No plaudits for Kappa who chose poorly and reaped the dividend. They shirted the South Africans who were overshadowed by their daft manager (Mr Trousers, no less) and the Jamaicans whom we couldn't really see for all the smoke.
It's been a fine tournament, with the traditional powers like Nike and Adidas going as far as expected but with surprise packets Lotto emerging as refreshingly as a breath of fresh nylon.
Their achievements remind us of Pele's prediction that sometime before the next century is too old, we will see a team from the continent ConnollySports win a World Cup.
Only then will the revolution be complete.
