"1430 Steps to Brazilian Redemption"
The Diary of a Heartbroken Brazil fan - Day 2 (10/07/2014)
The Diary of a Heartbroken Brazil fan - Day 2 (10/07/2014)
The pain of defeat is still raw today. Not helped by hearing on the news this morning that apparently the German side made a pact at half-time that they would ease off against Brazil in the second-half so as not to humiliate or embarrass them any further. If true, this would appear to be a gesture of wonderful sporting and gentlemanly behaviour from the Germans. The fact that they have revealed this pact though does away with all the good work and only serves to cause more pain and embarrassment. Still, the Germans are not to blame. They are professional sportsmen who play to win. It is in their very nature as professionals to go for the jugular when the opportunity presents itself. The moment you ease off, you lose that edge, that killer instinct that separates the champions from the also-rans.
In Brazil , Felipe Scolari spoke in a press conference about the “disaster” that was the debacle against Germany . He said that he, his staff and the players were all responsible, and that his future as Brazil manager will be sorted after the 3rd Place Play-Off with Holland on Saturday.
It’s too easy to blame people when things go so catastrophically wrong, as they did on Tuesday evening. The Brazilian fans inside the Minerao in Belo Horizonte clearly wanted to vent their anger at Fred.
It isn’t Fred’s fault that he was selected. The same way it wasn’t Hulk’s fault, or Maicon’s fault or any other player’s fault. They were chosen to play for their country at the World Cup. Is it their fault that Brazil has such a wonderful football history? Is it their fault that the nation expected and wanted them to win the World Cup? Do people expect Fred to turn to Scolari and say “Sorry, I know you have selected me to play, but I am not good enough. Pick somebody else!”? We need to lay off the players.
Nor is it Scolari’s fault. He picked the squad that he believed he could manage to World Cup glory. He hasn’t deliberately chosen a mediocre squad. Do you think he wanted to lose in such a manner? Of course not. The cold hard truth is that there are simply not enough good players coming through at the moment in Brazil . That conveyor-belt of talent that everybody likes to say Brazil have got seems to have broken down. It remains to be seen if it’ll ever be fixed.
One of my all time heroes, Romario, feels he knows where the problems lie and has been pointing the finger of blame at the people that run the CBF. I reckon every country has Football Federations or Associations that could do a much better job, but I think the problem with Brazilian is more widespread than that.
Date: Thursday July 10th 2014
Current Brazil
FIFA Ranking: 3
Likely Brazil
Some Brazil related headlines/quotes from today:
"The Brazilians lost the plot. But we have not achieved anything yet" - Germany assistant manager Oliver Bierhoff
"We lost in a way that we had never done before in the history of Brazilian football. But the tournament was not all bad. We had a bad defeat" - Brazil manager Luis Felipe Scolari.
The man has a point, we did make it to the semi-finals after all, but still, that match will scar me until my dying day.
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