Humiliating exit of Brazil
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 10, 2014 -

The stunning 7-1 defeat of Brazil in the hands of Germany in the FIFA World Cup semi-final on Tuesday at the Estadio Mineirao has definitely shocked everyone with a sense of disbelief.

It was a soul-crushing blow not just to the soccer-obsessed nation of 200 million people who love this scocer more than anything else, but also to other million of fans of the World Cup favourite around the globe.

Such a humiliating defeat was something none of them would have ever expected or imagined even in their wildest dream.

It was the worst defeat ever inflicted on a host nation of the biggest soccer event and never before in the history of World Cup has any side won by such a huge score margin in the semi-final.

Even some of Germany's players have stated that they were struggling to sink in what was happening as they blitzed the five-time World Cup champions with five first-half goals. Germany’s midfielder Toni Kroos is quoted to have said, “We had problems believing it was already 5-0 after a few minutes... Against Brazil, a result like this isn't expected."

On the other hand, owing up responsibility for humiliating defeat, Luiz Felipe Scolar, the coach of Brazil team, has said, “I’ve lost other matches, but if I think back over my life as football player, a coach, as a physical education teacher... I think it was the worst day of my life.”

It is true that Brazilians didn’t invent soccer, but from 1958 to 1970, they perfected the art of playing soccer to such a level that during that period, Brazil soccer team won the World Cup three times with graceful, free-flowing game that has remained the benchmark in soccer for the rest of the world.

For a team that expected to win its sixth World Cup championship title, never lost a competitive fixture at home since 1975 and won all of the semi-finals they contested since the Second World War, it was quite a disappointing exit, indeed.

So what went wrong on Tuesday?

In fact, for those who have been following the recent development in Brazilian football, Tuesday’s defeat may not have come so much of a stunner.

Football is a team game and co-ordination among the players on the field is what makes a team to win or lost in it.

But Brazilians have been focussing on individual skill and spontaneity so much so that despite possessing the ball for 52% of Tuesday's game, Brazil created barely a handful of chances.

In contrast, Germany passed the ball at full speed to create holes in the defense line of the opponent team and took advantage of every chance to hit the target.

Lack of co-ordination among the Brazilian players was such that it took 51 minutes for them to have a shot on the target and they could not score until the 90th minute of the full-time match.

So, even if the injury to Neymar could be regarded as one of the major reasons for the poor showing of Brazil in the semi-final of World Cup against Germany on Tuesday, the problems surely goes much deeper than just missing just one player.