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| Oh for heaven's sake |
Not very well, as it turned out. Brazil were inept.
Had the Dutch not dialed it back a bit after scoring two early goals – understandable, given they’d played four hours of nervy football in the past week and were considerably fatigued – the final scoreline may not have been that far off from the 7:1 debacle the other night. As it was, a 3:0 win by the Oranje was a pretty emphatic rebuke of the hosts, who offered up a lot of the same nonsense as they did v. the Germans four days ago.
The Brazilians came out in the same 5-0-5 alignment as the other day – and I say that only partly in jest. The Dutch ran through the Brazilian midfield in the first 20’ like they were frolicking in a meadow. Much of the scorn on the 2nd goal goes to David Luiz for his aimless, blootering attempt at a clearing header which landed at the feet of Blind in the center of the box, and deservedly so, but it should be pointed out that Blind plays left back for the Oranje, which means he went on about an 85-yard run to find himself unmarked right in front of the Brazilian goal. It’s not like Blind is particularly fleet of foot, either, and when you go on an 85-yard run, you don’t exactly have the element of surprise on your side. How does that happen?
What’s particularly depressing from a Brazilian point of view is that, even though he was awful the past two games, David Luiz is still one of their better players. Such is the dearth in the front 2/3 of the field that the Brazilian backs – David Luiz, Marcelo, Thiago Silva – had to try to do everything in the absence of Neymar. (And if you’re Paris St. Germain, and you’ve now spent €100,000,000 to pair David Luiz and Thiago Silva in the back, are you not going rummaging through the desk in research of the receipts right about now?) Oscar was the only guy up front who played worth a damn. I think the enormous pressure of trying to win in Brazil may have gotten to them, in the end – everyone was trying to do much, the back four kept freelancing but no one gave them any cover. And that’s not a novel concept. It’s basic football. At times, Seleção looked as if they’d never played together before.
We’ve probably all downplayed the amount of pressure this team was under. The ramifications of this sort of failure are going to be felt well into the fall, I suspect – not just on the footballing front, where wholesale changes seem inevitable, but there is also a presidential election in October in Brazil, and Dilma Rousseff’s reëlection campaign probably isn’t feeling so comfortable at the moment. It wouldn’t be the first, nor last time where failure on the football pitch translated into failure at the ballot box in Latin America, where the game and politics are seemingly inherently intertwined. The cost figure I’ve heard thrown about for the World Cup is around $11,000,000,000 altogether – that’s a lot of zeroes – far too much of it public money and far too much of it over budget. The general consensus going into this event was that, for all of the corruption and cronyism and resulting discontent, the general public in Brazil would ultimately put up with it if Seleção won the World Cup. Well, they didn’t. Now what? And don’t forget that other endeavour in political pulled pork on the Brazilian BBQ at the moment, the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, preparations for which haven’t been going very well. Such calamitous boondoggles no longer have place in a developing nation attempting to become a major international player in arenas far, far greater than the Maracanã.
As I said the other day, there has been an overwhelming sense of entitlement about everything Seleção did in this tournament – and the 1st goal in today’s game was in keeping with that notion, since Thiago Silva should’ve been red carded and probably would’ve been were he wearing any other jersey. (Awarding the penalty was something of a compromise, since it was debatable that it should have been, but on the other hand, watching the Brazilian play a man down for 88’ would’ve made us all squeamish.) If you were a Brazilian, anything short of committing a felony was going to let you stay in the game, which Scolari knew and which he used in the way he crafted his strategy. In chopping down Colombians much like Washington chopped down cherry trees, the Brazilians were almost boasting that there were no repercussions – and they were then shocked and aghast when, in what became an overheated game, their only hope and saviour Neymar was seriously injured. (Not to say it was justified in any way, of course. In no way do I think there was intent to injure on the part of Zúñiga. But if you are going to actively fan the flames, you do not get to bitch if and when the fire rages out of control.) The Brazilians seemed to think there would be no consequences for their actions. This tourney has ultimately been an exercise in arrogance and just desserts, a dessert baked with the rottenest of apples.
