“One year after Brazil’s meltdown”

“One year after Brazil’s meltdown”

Editorial by : Jonathan Zielanowski ; Twitter ID: @Jonathan_Ziela

On July 8^th 2014, Brazil lived one of their saddest nights in football history, losing 7-1 against Germany. This is their worst defeat in the history of the World Cup and they were removed from their own tournament. With this one, they have suffered 2 of the most impressive upsets in their history at home, this one along with the “Maracanazo” in 1950 losing the final game against Uruguay.

This match also marked Miroslav Klose’s 4^th World Cup semifinal, becoming the 1^st player ever to do so, and during the match he scored his 16^th goal at World Cups surpassing the previous record of 15, held by Brazilian Ronaldo.

Both teams got to the semifinal with an undefeated record, Brazil defeated Colombia but they lost Neymar due to injury as he left the game on a stretcher while Germany defeated France in quarterfinals.

The game was played in Belo Horizonte at the Mineirão Stadium, it only took Germany 11 minutes to take the lead with a Thomas Müller goal, that goal was only the beginning of the end; at the 23^rd minute Miroslave Klose scored their second (his record breaking 16^th in World Cups) and it starts the longest 6 minutes of Brazilian football, one minute later Toni Kroos scored the 3^rd and 2 minutes after that the 4^th, after this goal, Fans began to leave the stadium. Sammy Khedira scored the 5-0 at the 29^th (4 goals in just 6 minutes) a complete tragedy for Brazil.

After half time, Germany was enjoying and celebrating the victory, that didn’t matter to Andrea Schürrle who entered the game for Miroslav Klose at the 58^th minute and scored twice at the 69^th and 79^th minutes to have a convincing lead of 7-0, Oscar scored the honor goal for Brazil at the last minute.

This is largest margin of victory in a World Cup semifinal, it was also the worst loss by a host country in World Cup history and it broke Brazil’s streak of 62 unbeaten games at home in competitive matches, dating back to 1975.

Toni Kroos was elected as the player of the match; Kroos scored two goals in 69 seconds, making it the fastest brace in the history of the FIFA World Cup.

I could keep writing about the Brazilian meltdown and how they failed or about Germany’s triumph and their complete domain and their future championship but I believe there is no need. Germany scored 7 goals, but Brazilian coach Luis Felipe Scolari described it perfectly in just 6 words:

“The worst day of my life.”