Brazil - A 21st Century Breakdown (Part 2)
On the 8th July 2014 the footballing world fell silent and watched on as a giant fell
This is a continuation of 'Brazil: A 21st Century Breakdown (Part 1)’, if you are still yet to read this instalment you can do so here.
We left off this tale with Brazil in crisis.
You wouldn’t think on the surface there was really much wrong; back-to-back quarter-final appearances with the Selecao losing to eventual runners-up France and the Netherlands doesn’t seem like a reason to ring the alarm bells nor to expect what was on the horizon in the 2014 World Cup.
But Brazil had no identity. A succession of managers had tried and failed to instil a consistent style of football into the team since Felipe Scolari’s departure in 2002 (and to be honest this has been the pattern for Brazil across their history but we’ll touch on this later).
In 2006, they tried to channel ‘Joga Bonito’ once again but in doing so lost all semblance of structure and in 2010, they overcorrected, with Dunga’s pragmatic style acting as a direct challenge to the statement that football is a form of entertainment; both ended in the same result.
In time you can solve this, but Brazil did not have time on their side. In fact, in 2010 the clock had already been clicking for three years;2007 is where we will start this part of our story.
What follows is a story of greed, broken promises, unbelievable pressure and a country that saw its love for a sport die slowly over the course of 7 years and then quickly in the space of 90 minutes.
As I’ve made clear many times, Brazilians love football. The modern game may have been ‘created’ in England, but the South American country is its spiritual home.
So when the opportunity arose to host the World Cup in 2014, they jumped at the chance. The country announced their official bid in December 2006, followed a few days later by Colombia. Argentina would later declare their intention to bid to host the competition, making it a three way race however this would not be the case for long.
Argentina’s bid would not materialise and Colombia would withdraw in April, so Brazil without any competition would secure the 2014 edition of the World Cup on October 30th 2007.
A win for all of Brazil you would think? But the thing with perfect storms is they can start out as a pleasant and welcome breeze.
It wasn’t the most well-planned bid, so it was lucky that it was the only one in the end. In September 2006, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated:
“We don't have any stadium which is in a condition to host World Cup games. We’re going to have to build at least 12 new stadiums in this country."
According to Business Insider, $3 billion was spent on the construction and renovation of stadiums to host the competition and you’ll be glad to know that fast forward to today and hardly any of them are used. ‘White elephants’ standing as monuments to the failures of the World Cup.
In fact only a year after the competition, it was reported that Mane Garrincha stadium in the capital Brasilia (costing around $350m) was being used as a bus depot. Another in Manaus sits unused, a blight in the centre of the Amazon rainforest.
It was estimated that $13.5 billion was spent on the competition in total, according to Diplomatic Courier, but writer Chris Herman commented that this money might not have been spent effectively:
Perhaps more concerning than the stadiums was the missed opportunity to make vast improvements to the country’s struggling urban and intercity infrastructure. When the World Cup was still in its planning stages, the Brazilian government promised a number of infrastructure development projects that were met with excitement by the Brazilians. However, as the Cup drew nearer, more and more of these projects were dropped from the list, and many of the ones that were not dropped have yet to be finished.
He went on to comment that the $2.6 billion spent on upgrading the country’s airports was another example of an investment which helped the competition but didn’t really help the Brazillian people.
And this is where we see the darker side of the World Cup. Not as blatantly obvious as the issues in Qatar, but in some ways equally problematic.
Brazil is not a ‘rich country’. According to The World Bank’s ranking of the most deprived countries in the world it comes in at 108 (as of the 31st May 2022). Now I’m not an economist but that’s not great especially when you see the majority of the countries that rank below them.
Rio de Janeiro is famous for Copacabana beach and Christ the Redeemer, but it’s also famous for its favelas (not just because of the map in Modern Warfare 2), slums which extend up the hills that surround the shining city.
Lulu had promised that no public funds would go towards their World Cup plans, in the end, they had spent $3.5 billion from the budget, though some estimate it could be a lot higher.
The country was suffering at the hands of the sport it loved, that welcome breeze was starting to become a fierce gust.
Street art began to appear on walls across the country, one particularly poignant example was found in Sao Paolo, with the phrase “ We need food, not football” written below the image of a starving and crying child trying to eat a ball.
According to Terre des Hommes, around 170,000 people lost their homes during the preparations for the World Cup due to the building or renovation of stadiums, roads, airports and other infrastructure projects, and were rehoused in huts, some without electricity or running water.
Terre des Hommes Chief Executive Danuta Sacher gave an interview with the BBC in September 2014, criticising FIFA for making billions without accountability, while the poorer people in the countries that hosted the event suffered. She said:
"Host countries pay a social price, and also a high financial price, which then has a knock-on effect in the amount of social provision that the host nation can provide."
Honestly, I could go on for hours about how ill-conceived and problematic hosting the World Cup is, and this isn’t just for Brazil either, South Africa and a number of other countries have suffered similar problems.
But when times are tough, many people look for an escape. Ironically the main escape for many was the root of their problems, football and the 2014 World Cup. If Brazil could win then maybe this suffering wouldn’t have been pointless, though that seems an optimistic thought given what would happen surrounding the main event.
And so the pressure on the national team grew, and the weight of expectation fell on the shoulders of one man…
Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, or as he is more commonly known, Neymar.
Neymar was 15 when Brazil won their World Cup bid in 2007, but he was already being touted as the ‘Heir to Pele’.
At 13 he had already signed his first sponsorship deal with Nike, who had seen the young Brazilian tearing it up at youth level and decided they needed to secure his signature early.
He had also caught the eye of Real Madrid and trialled with their youth side, but his father (who is also his agent and that’ll become important later) decided that he was best off remaining in Brazil and so he signed professionally with Santos.
Instead of escaping the Pele comparison, he had leaned into it by trying to make a name at his former team.
The best way I can describe the way Neymar plays football is like an eel, he is slippery and hard to catch. He incorporates skills into his game, but it is always with a purpose (even if that purpose is just to embarrass an opponent who has been a little too physical with him).
He is both the Joga Bonito of 1998 but also the pragmatism of 1994 combined, the embodiment of what the modern Selecao needed to be. Movement with purpose.
He made his senior debut in 2009 at the age of just 17 and over the course of the next four years he would play 225 games and score 136 goals, not Pele numbers but not even Pele scored Pele numbers (in competitive games). Brazilian expert Tim Vickery would write in 2010:
"The 18-year-old is a magnificent prospect. He is sleek and skilful, able to beat the defender on either side, capable of combining well, and full of tricks he can put to productive use in and around the penalty area."
So why did he not make the cut in 2010 if he was seen as Brazil’s next saviour?
Well, Dunga is why. Ronaldo and Romario reportedly begged the then coach to take Neymar to the competition and a petition demanding that he be added to the squad reached 14,000 signatures, but Dunga still held firm.
As I said in the previous instalment, the coach believed that the need to play beautiful football was a fugazi and unfortunately with Neymar’s lack of international experience he did not feel he was worth the risk.
The coach would later go on to explain himself in a 2014 interview with FirstPost, and even if the reasoning doesn't really sound relevant when applied to an individual, there was still some logic behind it:
"The story that we have often seen in Brazil is that players with only a handful of matches have never really lived up to expectations in the World Cup. In 1966, we had players who in 1970 were much better, but in 1966 they didn't have experience. And Brazil performed badly in 1966."
Could his directness and trickery have turned the tide against the Netherlands? Perhaps, but perhaps he would have been targeted the same as his teammates and the result would have remained the same.
A number of trophies in Brazil, individual accolades and even a Puskas award for a beautiful goal against Flamengo later and the winger who had once trialled with Los Blancos instead decided to join Barcelona.
The details surrounding the move are *ahem* dodgy to say the least, and Barcelona and Neymar’s father would later be subjected to an official investigation. Though the original fee read as €57.1 to Santos, it was later found the actual fee was €86.2 million (£71.5 million) and Neymar’s family had received nearly half of it.
Barcelona were charged with tax fraud, but let’s not weigh this section down with boring litigation (it’s still not been resolved, the court date is set for October 2022 nearly 9 years later). The main point is that Neymar had arrived in Europe and he could no longer be ignored when selecting a World Cup squad.
But the storm I mentioned earlier was still brewing away back home, and while Neymar had escaped it for now, instead dealing with a different set of expectations in Spain, like George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg he would soon have to head back into the tempest.
I mentioned before that Brazil have a problem with appointing managers. They’ve won the World Cup five times so who am I to judge, but it seems like for most of the 21st century and also throughout much of their history, failure of any kind is greeted with a swift exit out the door…
… but make sure you keep a hold of your entry pass because they might call you back in a few years to manage again. That’s what happened in 2012, after two uninspiring years of Mano Menezes who was sacked after losing in the Copa America Quarterfinal to Paraguay and in the Olympic final to Mexico, Big Phil returned.
Since his last spell, he had spent 5 years with Portugal overseeing them in two European Championships and a World Cup, a short spell with Chelsea (he didn’t even last the season), a weird year in Uzbekistan with Bunyodkor and then two and a half years with Palmeiras where he won the Copa de Brasil.
A mixed bag, but what really mattered to Brazil wasn’t what happened since his last spell with the Selecao; he had won World Cup in 2002 and the CBF were hoping he could make it happen again.
There was no experimental 3-5-2/3-4-1-2 this time around, Scolari chose to adopt a 4-2-3-1 formation which was implemented by a number of different managers in this competition.
Since there are no qualifiers for Brazil as the hosts, the only competitive fixtures for the squad comes in the Confederations Cup. They win all five games and the trophy with Neymar winning the Golden Ball.
A trophy on home soil you’d think would have sent the Brazil fans into the rapturous celebrations and given them optimism ahead of the World Cup the following year.
Instead riots raged throughout the tournament; 50,000 people marched on the stadium before Brazils semi-final victory against Uruguay, the papers would read ‘Brazil wins, but Belo Horizonte loses’.
The public unrest over the use of funds for the World Cup and the Olympics in 2016 would not settle, there was no relief or break, this storm was raging and it could not be quelled.
All-round swell guy, Sepp Blatter seemingly oblivious to the situation stated in an interview O Globo:
“I can understand that people are not happy, but they should not use football to make their demands heard. Brazil asked to host the World Cup. We didn’t force it on them.”
The issue was people weren’t using football to make their demands heard, they were making demands because of the football.
It seems disingenuous for me to truly ignore these protests in favour of ‘just talking about the football’. The Brazillian public of course wanted the world’s biggest competition to come to it’s spiritual home, but they were unaware of the monkey’s paw that they were wishing upon.
I can’t say that these protests calmed down, they would continue to rage ahead of the World Cup and during the competition.
I could say they hoped a win would unite the country behind the sport they loved, but for many that love had now been twisted into a deep hatred as they and their families went hungry and cold.
Clashes between protestors and the police happened all over the country, tear gas canisters flying, people clashing together. And all the while the World Cup carried on as if nothing was happening.
Football is a simple game, eleven players vs eleven players, kicking a ball around for 90 minutes. But the issue is it has become so much more and reached every crevice of life as we know it, so there are going to be winners and losers off the football pitch well.
I’d rather focus on this than Brazil’s 3-1 win to Croatia or their 0-0 draw with Mexico thanks to an outstanding performance from Guillermo Ochoa or even their domination of South America after defeating Chile and Colombia in the knockout rounds.
Romario, now at this point a member of Brazilian parliament, dubbed the 2014 World Cup as ‘the biggest theft in football history’ and this was not the first time he had spoken out. He had tweeted prior to the tournament:
"Brazil needs to stop this business of becoming a slave of Fifa. The sovereignty of the country must be respected. Brazil is certainly not going to stage the best World Cup in history as some have said. It is not going to be a World Cup for the Brazilian people".
No matter what happened on the pitch, Brazil had lost, but as the saying goes ‘art imitates life’ and the Selecao were about to get a rude awakening on the football field.
There is an event in Brazil’s history known as the ‘Marcanazao’, which translates to the ‘Blow/Tragedy of the Maracana’. It is immortalised as a moment of national shame.
In 1950, Brazil were competing for the World Cup on home soil and came up against a much weaker Uruguay side. Brazil went ahead but Uruguay would then go on to score two, completing the comeback and achieving one of the biggest upsets in footballing history.
By the end 8th July 2014 the Brazilians would have a new event to add to their history books, the ‘Mineriazo’ or translated ‘The Agony of Mineirao’.
The fixture, Brazil vs Germany, a repeat of the 2002 final. Millions around the world tuned in; if you were in the UK you would have been greeted by an incredibly cringey interlude of David Luiz singing ‘Brazil, Braaaaaazilllll’.
Brazil would have been the favourites, but Neymar had suffered a tournament ending injury against Colombia. Under the pressure, the Brazilian forward had thrived, scoring four goals and registering an assist in five games but now he was unavailable after nearly breaking his back in an unfortunate and accidental clash with Camilo Zuniga.
But with the hindsight of what was about to unfold, Thiago Silva’s absence through suspension due to accumulation of yellow cards was the bigger loss.
So on paper, it was expected, and I am being serious here, to be a close match. Instead it was a massacre.
Thomas Muller opened the scoring after 11 minutes, the two sides had exchanged shots in the early stages but Germany had drawn first blood. David Luiz was at fault as he had unfortunately lost his man, but that's how Muller has always played football so what are you going to do.
And then the assault began.
If you left the room to get a drink there was a chance you could have missed three goals, if you were waiting for the kettle to brew for a coffee that could have extended to four.
Klose scored in the 23rd minute and to add insult to injury, in doing so he had surpassed Ronaldo’s all time record at the World Cup. Toni Kroos then scored a brace in three minutes before Sami Khedira capped off the salvo with a goal in the 29th.
5-0 in less than 30 minutes. Everyone sat dumbstruck as the efficiency of the Germany team was shown in 1080p. 12 years ago they were the victims at the hands of the unstoppable force ‘Il Fenomeno’, now they were getting their revenge and then some.
If this was a Simspons’ episode, an onlooker would shout ‘Stop it. He’s already dead’, but there was nothing funny about what was happening, in fact it was quite sad.
The first half ended and the coverage returned to a room full of pundits trying to make sense of what they had just witnessed. Former Brazilian midfielder Juninho best summed up the hopelessness of the situation:
"Scolari must protect the team. Don't think to win the game, just concentrate on not conceding more goals."
But concede more they did. Andre Schurrle would score a brace in the second half to make it 7-0 with Oscar scoring a consolation goal in the 90th minute to make it 7-1.
64 years on from the embarrassment in 1950 and during their second time hosting the competition, Brazil had done it again. The full time whistle came and the players looked broken.
The now infamous image of Luiz crying alongside poorly written jokes with ham-fisted insertions of 7-1 in them began to circulate on social media.
Gary Lineker introduced the post-match analysis on British television as follows:
"This was not just one of the game's super-powers beating a smaller nation, this was Brazil for crying out loud, a Brazil side hosting the World Cup for the first time in 64 years. Germany's elation is matched by Brazil's desolation. We have seen something truly astonishing."
It had become very clear during the match that the Germany players had began to pull their punches when they were celebrating. They were facing a team that was completely collapsing under the pressure of an entire nation’s watchful eyes and they didn’t want to rub it in.
As goal after goal went in, their celebrations became less and less. Their pity almost exaggerated the embarrassment. Mats Hummels would confirm this was the case after the result:
We just made it clear that we had to stay focused and not try to humiliate them. We said we had to stay serious and concentrate at half-time. That's something you don't have to show on the pitch if you are playing. You have to show the opponent respect and it was very important that we did this and didn't try to show some magic or something like this. It was important we played our game for 90 minutes.
The fans who were already at boiling point, exploded. Booing the players off the field was just the beginning of a night that had been brewing for seven long years; the perfect storm had hit land.
Riots broke out in Sao Paulo with buses and Brazilian flags being burned while a number of electronic stores were looted.
There was a stampede at Copacabana beach while a mass robbery took place nearby in a Rio fan-zone, as bags were snatched off the shoulders of spectators and some fans were even held at knife point for their valuables.
Germany fans were escorted out of the stadium by police to try and protect them from any potential blowback from their teams dominant win. In many ways Germany did Brazil a favour defeating Argentina in the final to avoid the ultimate embarrassment.
When I was thinking of the title ‘A 21st Century Breakdown’, this is the moment I was thinking of. Not only how Brazil had suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in the history of the game, but how football itself,the sport they loved, had torn the country apart.
The question is, if this is rock bottom, where did Brazil go from here?
The 2018 World Cup is a rather uninteresting affair. They again made it to the Quarterfinals where they were knocked out by Belgium in a 2-1 defeat.
What is a marked difference however, is their approach to the manager. Usually after such a loss you would have seen a change in coach, but since his appointment in 2016, Tite has remained Head Coach of the international squad.
He is now the Selecao’s longest serving manager across a single spell in it’s history.
Tite’s tactics aren’t revolutionary, in fact he deploys the same 4-2-3-1 that saw Brazil lose 7-1 to Germany. Of course the personnel is different but the main difference is it seems the team all implicitly trust and support the manager.
In a pre-match press conference ahead of the World Cup, Tite would recount a conversation he had with former Argentinian player and manager Carlos Bianchi:
“He once told me: ‘Tite, one of the great assets of a great team is to be mentally strong and have the capacity to be balanced and focused,’” the Brazil manager said. “That really got imprinted on my mind. We should have some common sense: neither euphoria, nor the fear of losing. Keeping your head cool and knowing you have a good collective performance.”
International management is a strange beast. Yes some managers thrive by implementing a clear tactical approach, but others prefer to put together a solid unit and manage the personalities and egos within the squad. Tite firmly falls into the latter category.
Despite the defeat, the belief in Tite’s project was clear. It might have helped that the 2-1 loss to Belgium was his first as Brazil’s manager but now he will head to Qatar with a much more talented squad.
After a few seasons in the wilderness, Neymar has started the season incredibly well and looks like he has rediscovered the explosiveness that made him such an unstoppable force of nature all those years ago.
After his move to Arsenal, Gabriel Jesus looks like he has finally been unshackled. Add this to the talent of Raphinha, Vinicius Jr, Casemiro, Marquinhos, Alisson etc., there is a reason Brazil are the favourites going into 2022 World Cup.
Brazil also finally righted the wrongs of 2012 and won a gold medal during the Japan Olympics. Although meaningless in the grand scheme of things, this was the only ‘trophy’ that the Selecao had not won in their long history and therefore it had a greater significance.
So will they finally win their sixth World Cup 20 years after Ronaldo’s brace past Oliver Kahn delivered them their previous triumph, or will they fall foul in the quarter finals once again.
Yes, Brazil suffered a horrendous breakdown in the 21st Century, but just as empires fall, new ones rise to take their place.
Cheers for reading ‘Brazil - A 21st Century Breakdown’. Next week will be a newsletter based around current affairs, maybe a transfer special around some of the moves I’ve really liked this window. Then the following week we’ll be back on this series with France.