BRAZIL’S shell-shock 7-1 defeat by Germany is mortifying. Among one of the most reputed football-loving nations, the Brazilian team put up a miserable performance breaking the hearts of 200 million Brazilian fans and many more admirers like me globally. The Brazilian game was a nightmare and I was relieved when the team’s worst-ever international performance ended.

Nevertheless, it is important for Brazil to put this humiliation behind it and analyse the reasons for the unfortunate debacle and take corrective action. The team was shaky even when Neymar was playing; without him, the team crumbled. Its defence was weak. Their attack was pitiable. The team was devoid of any strategy or tactics. The Germans rammed through the Brazilian team, as if the latter was a university soccer team. It was a massacre. This is the weakest Brazilian teams to play the World Cup.

Brazil should take heart from a poem of Humbert Wolfe, “If it must be so, let us not weep or complain; If I have failed, or you, or life turned sullen; We have had these things, they do not come again; But the flag still flies, and the city has not fallen.”

Ernest Hemmingway also reiterated “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

This is not the time for Brazilian tears; the team should gear up and at least win the third position, so as to redeem some faith of the heart-broken fans.

Rajendra K. Aneja
Dubai, UAE

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014