This and That: The Most Talked About Game Ever?

So, that happened. It actually happened. Don’t ask me how, just accept that it did.

Brazil 1, Germany 7

I’ll type that again

Brazil 1, Germany 7

I would hazard a guess that my thoughts mirrored the feelings of pretty much everyone in the World during that first half of madness in Belo Horizonte. Brazil, if I may be so bold as to quote “The Offspring”, What In The World Happened To You?

Brazil’s defeat will no doubt send shockwaves through not just the football world but also most other aspects of society. This morning in work even non-fans were bringing up the madness of it all, shocked as they were by the result. It just doesn’t seem real. It just doesn’t seem that the result is possible. And even if such a score line was possible, surely not in a World Cup Semi Final? Surely not to Brazil in their own country? But yes, it happened, and I don’t think it’ll ever be forgotten.

In some ways this could end up being the most talked about football match of all time for solely football reasons. Events like Hillsborough or The Bradford Fire will always be remembered for what didn’t happen on the pitch, but for what actually happened on just the pitch alone, will any other football contest come remotely close to this one as far as notoriety?

Consider what we saw and the impacts thereof. This was the hosts of the World Cup getting viciously and meticulously taken apart at the Semi Final stage. Civil unrest had already began before the match itself had even finished, with some people burning the Brazilian flag in Sao Paulo. The fans in the stadium brutally turned against their countrymen as The Germans took The Selecao apart with unbridled ease. It was a demolition the likes of which footballs ultimate super-power had never suffered before either at a World Cup or on home soil.

The Brazilian supporters, so stricken with angst and confusion, didn’t even know how to react at half time, so shell shocked were they by what they had witnessed. It honestly seemed like they were going through the stages of grief as the 90 minutes progressed. There was denial, anger and, by the time the 7th German Goal went in, a bizarre and sarcastic version of acceptance as they actually applauded.

At full time, the boo’s rained down once more upon the stricken Brazilian players. David Luiz dropped to his knees in prayer (Most likely praying that the owners of PSG weren’t on the phone to Chelsea to see if they could get their money back) before crying violent salt tears upon the turf. Philip Scolari, the broken Brazilian manager, did his best to try and console the players but it was to no avail. And nor should it, for these wounds were most surely self-inflicted.

Brazil deserved to lose. In fact, had Ozil’s wayward shot at the end been on target, they would have lost by a heftier margin. Germany were better at every aspect of the game. They took the lead in the first half and never looked back. Even at 5-0 up, they remained determined to widen the gyre between themselves and their opponents. Manuel Neuer made a number of excellent saves. It was as if he hadn’t been paying attention in the first half and his team had conspired to tell him that they were really only hanging on to a 1-0 lead. One could forgive Neuer of such a situation were it true, as he could have put his feet up and had a nap in the first half, so little was he required to do.

It’s been interesting to see people’s reactions to this game, with emotions ranging from amusement, to bemusement and to sadness. Emotions really are all over the place. A lot of neutrals are saying that they just couldn’t enjoy the match. I can understand that. After a while I did start to feel incredibly sorry for the Brazilian players and the supporters who remained in their seats for the full 90 minutes. I felt especially bad for Fred, who seems to have been made the scapegoat. Every time he touched the ball or was shown on the big screen, he was met with vicious booing.

I’ll confess to not understanding this at all. Whenever my team get hammered by a large score line, my initial response would be to blame the defence, manager and goalkeeper (In that order) before I even began looking at the midfield and strikers. Fred had about as much to do with Brazil shipping 7 goals as the kit man or the coach driver, so the fact that he would be targeted for such abuse was genuinely harsh and unfair in my honest opinion.

I certainly feel the Brazilian supporters were entitled to be angry at the result, but I cannot disagree with them any stronger in their chosen target of that anger. I can only think that the bitter pain of defeat had caused the crowd to literally lose all sense of reason and sanity. Hey, it happens. If you see your team ship 5 goals in 18 minutes, it’s going to make you a little bit surly to say the least.

So, where do we go from here? Brazil have got The Bends and they’re really shaking. They wish it was the sixties, they wish that they were happy and they wish that something could happen. They used to fly like Peter Pan and the people of Brazil flew when they touched their hands but now their dreams are crippled and cracked and they feel it in their bones.

Will this game be the most talked about of all time? It certainly won't be easy to forget for those that saw it. I'll certainly be talking about it for a long time and I suspect a lot of others will do so as well. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the Favelas of Brazil.

Germany will progress to the Final, against either old foes Argentina or even older foes The Netherlands. You’d have to think that they are now favourites to win it all after that performance. No pressure lads!