It was settled by the deftness of a street thief. Robinho's beautiful 67th minute finish was a throw-back to a regal age, but Ireland were never embarrassed in Croke Park.

They played with vigour and courage and even summoned the audacity to pursue a goosebump finish.

It wasn't to be, but the visitors scrambled out of here like intruders barreling down a fire-escape.

We demand more from Brazil. We expect rippling movement and globetrotter tricks. We want football that is a giddy drum-roll, haughty, vain, unorthodox. It is never enough to see them win. Efficiency is not the contract. They must play the jogo bonito. The beautiful game.

You listen to old press-box denizens talk about Brazil and every utterance, every memory seems faithfully tethered to some 37-year-old snippet from Mexico's Aztec Stadium. That team of Pele, Carlos Alberto, Jairzinho, Tostao, Gerson and the human cannon-ball, Rivelino, did not just win the 1970 World Cup.

They reduced the rest of the football world to a lower caste.

Legacy

That's a forbidding legacy and, though they've won two World Cup since, there has never quite been the same distance between them and the rest of the planet. Pele, remember, was the emblem of that team. A beautiful athlete who, in his pomp, was arguably the most famous human-being alive.

A one-day truce was declared in the war between Nigeria and Biafra so both sides could see him play; the Shah of Iran waited three hours at an airport just to be photographed with him; frontier guards from Red China left their posts so they could travel to Hong Kong when he was visiting.

Pele transcended the game he played. But, then, so did that whole team.

You can tell Dunga doesn't quite trust the mysticism engendered by that era. He was never a ball-juggler himself and feels no compulsion to put his team-sheet on an easel.

We got an early flavour of their pragmatism last night when right-back Moura, scythed down Aiden McGeady as the young Celtic man came bolting at him like a giddy foal. The message was unambiguous. Trespass at your peril.

Oh there was an endlessly splashy fountain of "oles" from the Gort contingent on the 'Hill and Croker was awash with exaggerated gasps every time a man in a yellow shirt so much as dipped a shoulder. But this wasn't beach soccer in Copacabana. This was football with an unromantic edge.

Lee Carsley's detractors would scoff at his presence in this company, but he regulated the pulse of the Irish midfield with un-fussed ease here. A seventh minute shunt on Robinho upset the young Galactico, but Carsley was impervious to the animated protest.

The only worrying traffic to materialise was down Ireland's left flank where Kevin Kilbane and McGeady tended to get sucked in-field, leaving a great, gaping prairie in their wake.

Yet, Ireland got to the mid-point relatively under-whelmed, only a snap-shot from Josue and a lurching volley from Fabiano ever causing Shay Given's pulse to quicken.

Juices

Twice, just after the resumption, Damien Duff almost unlocked the Brazilian defence but, suddenly, the juices bubbled over when Stephen Kelly did a lumberjack job on Richardlyson.

The Brazilians almost scored from Ribas's free and, thereafter, they began to emit the anger of the 'favelas' from where their best football has always flown from.

In a worrying three minute cluster, Fabiano forced a fine save from Given, Baptista fizzed a shot narrowly wide and Fabiano again brushed a near-post volley into the side-netting. Like birds of prey, they smelt weakness.

In between, Duff drew a smart save from Espindola, but Brazil were playing with arched backs now.

And Robinho's finish articulated the difference.

He collected the ball from Ribas and came to a standstill on the edge of the 'box', like the leader of a possee arriving at a pass. Carsley and Kelly checked their angles and seemed re-assured by the findings. They shouldn't have been.

Robinho took one step inside and tucked the most perfect shot between Carsley's legs and beyond Given's reach. Finally, a moment of art.

Kilbane's flick almost got Robbie Keane through in the dying flurries, but Espindola saved smartly as the captain's feet.

No matter. Ireland had performed; Brazil had escaped.

Taken to safety by Robinho, the beautiful, nerveless street cat.