THE natty slogan on the side of the Brazil team coach reads: ‘Brace yourself, the sixth is coming’. They got that wrong, didn’t they?
This time there is not even the consolation of having made it that far.
Pulverised. There are few other ways of describing just what Germany, brutal, clinical Germany, inflicted here in not just knocking on the door to Sunday’s final in Rio, but hammering it down with a vengeance.
The date with destiny and a sixth triumph Luiz Felipe Scolari had spoken so often about could not been written without their stars, the injured Neymar and suspended skipper Thiago Silva, with no one assuming responsibility in their absence.
How Die Mannschaft profited. The scoreline screams out, but the breakdown of figures is almost as compelling. Such as the 179 seconds which elapsed between Germany’s second and fourth goals as Brazil went completely AWOL, the fact this was their first competitive defeat on home soil since 1975 and their heaviest-ever defeat.
When Sami Khedira scored the fifth goal for Joachim Low’s side inside half an hour, the Estadio Mineirao was stunned in silence. When Andre Schurrle thrust the dagger twice more after coming on as a substitute, his second and Germany’s seventh arriving in the 79th minute, it was all the crowd could do to applaud their rivals’ pre-eminence. Forget Oscar’s goal in the dying seconds.
Brazil’s solution to coping without their leading scorer Neymar, of course, now looks naive. It was not to play a third central midfielder in an attempt to seize middle ground, but to opt instead for Bernard, a winger Scolari claims has “joy in his legs.”
Remarkably, unbelievably, mind- bogglingly, the plan lay in ruins inside half-an-hour. Germany ran amok, slicing Brazil open until Scolari’s side pleaded for sympathy.
It is easy to dismiss the hosts as a shambles and the manner in which Thomas Muller was granted the freedom of the penalty area, losing David Luiz at the front post, to side- foot home Toni Kroos’ 11th-minute corner and begin the rout, showed once more the defender’s fallibility.
But credit Low’s side for the manner in which they clinically picked their rivals off, playing with their heads while Brazil listened only to their beating hearts, before rubbing their noses in the dirt.
No comments:
Post a Comment