Death of the beautiful game

It was the World Cup where the myth of Brazilian football came to an inglorious finale

For Brazil, this was a World Cup of unexpected turnarounds. Six weeks ago, before the first ball was kicked, the hosts were the overwhelming favourites to win the tournament for a record sixth time. Off the pitch, however, Brazil’s image was in tatters: overpriced stadiums barely finished in time, protests rocking the country, and unfinished infrastructure projects that threatened chaos for the hundreds of thousands of arriving fans.

Instead, what took place was one of the best World Cups of all time, if not the best. The football was exciting, full of classic matches, unforgettable drama and great goals. The hospitality was excellent, the stadiums looked fantastic, and the airports ran smoothly. The event provided a picture postcard of Brazil that has unquestionably improved the way the country is seen abroad. Goooooal for Brazil!

And yet this was the World Cup where the myth of Brazilian football died. The national team’s 7-1 defeat to Germany in the semi-final was one of the most extraordinary matches in the history of international football. It was Brazil’s worst ever result in a World Cup, and the biggest ever defeat of any semi- final, and of any host country.

Brazil likes to call itself the ‘football country’, and it remains the only country to have won the World Cup five times. (Germany, this year’s winners, and Italy, are biting at their heels with four victories each.) Stars like Pelé and Garrincha, and remarkable teams like the 1970 Brazil side, played with an artistry and athleticism that became the gold standard of football, popularly known as the jogo bonito, or beautiful game. Yet the 7-1 thrashing showed that on the biggest stage, with all the world watching, Brazil is neither the home of beautiful nor successful football anymore.

I watched the game at a bar in Copacabana, Rio’s beach district, just next to a crowded Fan Fest. A few minutes after kick-off it started to rain, gradually getting heavier, and by full time it was torrential. The downpour felt symbolic: either the heavens were weeping copiously, or this was some kind of mass cleansing of the soul. In Brazil, where football is the greatest symbol of national identity, the results of World Cups deeply affect national aspiration and self-esteem.

The result of the final game in 1950, the only other time Brazil has hosted a World Cup, is considered by some historians to be the greatest tragedy in contemporary Brazilian history. Brazil faced Uruguay at the Maracanã in Rio, requiring only a draw to win the trophy. The Brazilians had played dazzling football in the previous games. They were the superior team. Everyone took victory for granted. But with only 13 minutes to go, Uruguay scored the winner.

The trauma was felt for decades. ‘Because it happened collectively and brought a united vision of the loss of a historic opportunity, because it happened at the beginning of a decade in which Brazil was looking to assert itself as a nation with a great future, the result was a tireless search for explanations of, and blame for, the shameful defeat,’ wrote the anthropologist Roberto DaMatta.

In 1958, Brazil won the World Cup for the first time, and they won it again in 1962 and 1970. Yet even though they had established themselves as undisputed champions, playing a style of football a class above everyone else, the country never forgot the pain of losing 1950 at home in the Maracanã.

In the run-up to this year’s tournament, the tragedy of 1950 was often mentioned. The hope was that a win here would put these old ghosts to rest once and for all. No one expected that the World Cup would create a new national tragedy, one that, in pure sporting terms, is the greatest humiliation in the country’s history. In fact, 1950 and 2014 can be seen as dramatic bookends of the rise and fall of the beautiful game.

From the start, this year’s tournament was fascinating, dramatic and emotional for South America’s largest nation. I was present at the opening game, Brazil vs Croatia, at São Paulo’s brand new stadium, the Arena Corinthians. The fans stood up and sang the Brazilian anthem a capella, beyond the recorded musical accompaniment, making a rousing wall of sound that made your hair stand on edge. (This practice started at the Confederations Cup last year, where it was seen as a powerful incentive for the team and a statement of unity at a time when thousands were protesting outside the stadiums.)

After the singing of the anthem, however, the Brazil crowds barely made a noise, certainly not as much as the supporters of the other South American nations in their games; and this became the subject of much soul-searching. One explanation was that the only people who could afford tickets were White, rich Brazilians, who normally didn’t go to football games and didn’t know how to chant. And it was true, there were almost no Black faces among the Brazilian fans, only among the players on the pitch, a reminder of the injustices inherent in Brazilian society. Fair weather fans are a problem in all World Cups, but it seemed worse in Brazil where football is such an important unifier, and where social differences are so extreme.

There was another reason that Brazilian fans were not cheering very loudly: the team was not playing very well. Even though Brazil won the Confederations Cup, everyone knew that this was an average Brazil team with only one outstanding player, Neymar, or possibly two, including Thiago Silva. The team were not convincing against Croatia, only winning 3-1 after going down to an early goal. During the singing of the national anthem before the second game against Mexico, Neymar cried. His tears were the first indication of the immense pressure he was under. For Brazilians, anything less than winning is seen as failure, a view endorsed by coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who always made a point of saying that Brazil would win.

The team’s fragile emotional state was laid bare in their first knock-out game, against Chile, which ended 1-1 after extra time. Before the penalty shots were taken, Brazilian captain Thiago Silva and the goalkeeper Júlio César began to weep uncontrollably, as if peering into the abyss that would have been the most humiliating result in the history of Brazilian football. Even though Júlio César’s saves won them the game, the national debate became less about tactics than the emotional state of the players, and—by extension—the emotional state of the country.

What sort of country cries over exiting a World Cup but barely registers much when two people are killed by a concrete bridge that falls on them, as happened the day before the quarter-final against Colombia? The bridge was one of the many pieces of planned transport infrastructure that had not finished in time for the tournament.

Yet, it was a different sort of disaster that truly united Brazil. Shortly before the end of the 2-1 quarter-final victory against Colombia, Neymar was seen lying on his front in agony, with his hands over his eyes. This time, his tears were of pain. His spine fractured, he would take no more part in the World Cup. Even though Brazil had made it to their first World Cup semi-final since 2002, there were no celebrations. Instead there were cathartic outpourings of grief and anger at the injustice and bad luck.

Neymar’s story was played out as a national tragedy, the collective experience bonding Brazilians together. It was the country’s Princess Diana moment. The anguish was not just because Neymar is Brazil’s best player, and therefore Brazil’s chances of winning the tournament had been effectively dashed, but because he plays in a Brazilian way, the only person who harks back to greats like Pelé. Without him, the team felt less Brazilian. Brazilians were grieving because ‘Brazil’ had been eliminated from their own World Cup.

The team were still thinking about Neymar when they arrived at the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte to play Germany. They all had baseball caps with Neymar’s name on, and they held his shirt up for the team photo. Yet no one was prepared for how the end ultimately came. In a six-minute period, the team let in four goals. It was 5-0 by half time, the game effectively over.

In Copacabana, Brazilians started to leave the Fan Fest on the beach in the tens of thousands. The nature of the defeat was so brutal that it was only possible to view it with detachment, and even humour. This time, the tears only fell from the sky.

“It’s all over,” one fan told me. She didn’t mean the World Cup. She meant the beautiful game.

Brazildeath of footballWorld Cup 2014