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| *Ramires in tears |
In shirt colour and quality, Brazil have set world football's gold
standard. Germany's crushing of the hosts presents the game's No.1 power
with a new struggle to retain their standing as the go-to nation for
talent.
Juninho Paulista, a member of 2002 World Cup winning squad,
called the 7-1 defeat in Belo Horizonte "an alarm signal for Brazilian
football," adding: "Prioritising physical force from the lowest levels
has limited our players and we forgot what's best about Brazil: the
midfielder who can create."
A sceptic would say "physical force" was one of the virtues
Brazil lacked, as the best midfield at this tournament rolled over
Fernandinho and Luiz Gustavo and then demolished David Luiz and Dante.
Brazilian machismo, much discussed in the build-up, descended into
feebleness.
Yet Juninho's point is well made. The 11 players who earned nought
out of 10 in the Brazilian daily O Globo carry a double burden. Already
they have taken up a slot in their country's history as ghosts in the
most embarrassing result since the 1950 final defeat to Uruguay at the
Maracana.
Back at their clubs, they may no longer appear to fans as the
reliable core of any self-respecting Champions League side. Those £25
million price tags may look wonky on players who appeared woefully
prosaic against the magisterial Germans.
In the stadium and on the streets that night, mortification
took precedence over anger. The expected eruption of disorder never
materialised (or not in the immediate aftermath). As one media bus made
its way back into town, a Brazilian man rushed from a bar to make an
obscene gesture at journalists and yank at the badge on his replica
jersey. Some girls tried to rip a flag from the car of triumphant German
supporters. For the most part, though, shame and bewilderment shaped
the reaction.
A personal theory is that the rampant emotionalism of Luiz
Felipe Scolari's players burned up a lot of the hysteria. The
overcooking of Neymar's absence - the No.10 shirt held up for the anthem
was cringe-inducing - turned what should have been a tactical and
technical challenge into an opera for a lost brother. Luiz's weeping at
the end may have rendered many Brazilians too startled to indulge their
own despair, though many cried. The players themselves were so obviously
broken men that it may have seemed unnecessary for the population to
take on the role of mourners.
The pathos was already taken care of. The damage to the
credibility of the game here, however, is universal, and may even be
felt in downward pressure on transfer fees and wages as clubs seize the
chance to reclassify Brazil as a B-grade provider of talent.
The statistics say that in last season's Champions League
there were 52 Brazilians, with only Spain (78) and Germany (55)
supplying more combatants. England had 23.
One recent count of Brazilian footballers across the globe
reached 1169, an extraordinarily high number. There were 606 in the top
divisions of 40 European nations. France was next, with 579. This
illustrates the scale and value of football for Brazil as an export
industry. In the short-term, the 7-1 thrashing is bound to dim the glow
of players such as Paulinho, Fernandinho and poor Fred, who was dismal.
Rightly or not, Brazilian midfielders may seem factory-produced.
This defeat was worse than 1950, most commentators here
agreed, because it was a wipeout, in a Brazil World Cup, by a country
who have stolen the Brazilian way of sumptuous passing and kaleidoscopic
pressing. Toni Kroos might have been an illustrious Brazilian No.8,
threading passes and seeing the whole landscape of the pitch. Thomas
Mueller might have been the darting, eager figure in an old Selecao.
First Spain devised a national style of play that relegated Brazil to
the chasing pack. Then Germany threatened to open a new era in
international football, annexing Ronaldo's World Cup scoring record,
though Miroslav Klose.
Brazil's media led the assault, with O Globo proclaiming a
day of "Embarrassment, Shame, Humiliation," and insisting: "Brazilian
football has only one solution: to resuscitate. Brazilian football has
to be born again. It has to be reborn."
Now they know how England feel. We keep this kind of
apocalyptic language on a loop. Maybe Brazil's mistake was appropriating
so many English names. Fred, Bernard and Jo may have sucked them into
the mire. It is a flippant point, but even the names of these Brazilian
players lack the resonance of a Socrates or Ronaldinho. Or perhaps we
just sensed a while back that they were unusually short on creativity.
Fernandinho, who will return to Manchester City under a
weather system to match the area, is among those facing a struggle to
forget, or at least recover. "Incredible things happened," he said, like
a man at the scene of an accident. "We can try to explain for the rest
of our lives, but we cannot find the words to explain this situation.
I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It's the first
time. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get over this. This
pain is big, big. All we can say is sorry to the people."
There is a huge financial incentive for the Brazilian
football industry to find solutions. This great country cannot send its
players abroad with a sign saying: "Buyer beware."
The Telegraph, London
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