WORLD CUP 2014 BRAZIL
SECOND REFLECTIONS

9 July 2014: Brazil 1 Germany 7

The first reactions to such a scoreline are shock, disbelief, alarm and even ridicule. It doesn't seem to make much sense. But, if you had watched the full match live and spend 5 minutes after the final whistle having some cool reflection, everything really makes sense and is not that surprising.

1. First, the big scoreline. Losing by 6, 7 or even 8 goals are nothing special even for quality teams like Brazil, Manchester United or Arsenal. Brazil themselves conceded 5 goals in official games 6 times in or before 1940 and twice in 1963. Their previous worst defeats were a 6-0 loss to Uruguay in the 1920 Copa America and an 8-4 friendly defeat to Yugoslavia in 1934. So, quality teams do lose and sometimes they lose big. That is no big deal!

2. The reasons for this latest thrashing are many and the most obvious is a poor defensive formation and the fault is largely Scolari's. Brazil was highly effective in their last match against Colombia with a fast, pressing and aggressive attacking approach and they started this match the same confident way. Had they scored the first goal, things would have turned out differently. When they conceded a soft first goal from a corner, it was so unexpected that suddenly, they lost their shape and couldn't recover their composure. The whole defense became at sixes and sevens and before they knew it, they had conceded a total of 5 goals in the first 29 minutes, most of them very soft goals. So, apparently, Scolari had worried too much about the loss of Neymar when the real problem was the absence of his captain Silva who was a key organizer and member of his defense.  It was already a lost cause in the second half even though his forwards tried to make amends.

3. Another deficiency of Brazil was the lack of depth in their squad. This is evident when Scolari replaced his injured superstar Neymar with the forgettable Bernard. As Gilberto Silva had pointed out, there is a paucity of world-class talent in the squad.

4. Germany is a quality team. They are well-organized, disciplined, well-drilled and intelligent enough to recognize Brazil's weakness in defense and exploit it time and again to score multiple goals. They actually did not do any brilliant or complicated things, but they thoroughly deserve to be in the final. So, we wish them all the best.

5. We should not read too much into this match as it was probably a one-off anomaly. In truth, Brazil is still a very good team. They had won the 2013 Confederations Cup beating the then reigning FIFA World Cup (2010) champion Spain 3-0 in the final of a tournament that also featured Italy, Mexico and Nigeria. Now, they will finish either 3rd or 4th in this World Cup. That is not such a total catastrophe that it has been made out to be.