It was the night Germany removed the crown from football royalty. They did so with their own version of the beautiful game and, by the time they had finished, Brazil had suffered an ignominy that was so extreme and implausible it made it feel as though a black marker pen had been taken to the pages of their football history.
Brazil have never suffered such a big defeat in any international tournament and never put on such a shambolic defensive performance as during an 18 minute first half period when Germany scored four goals, three of them in just 179 seconds.
Thomas Mueller scored in the 11th minute, Klose after 23 to take his World Cup total to 16, Toni Kroos in the 24th and 26th minutes, Sami Khedira after 29 and substitute Andre Schuerrle in the 69th and 79th minutes. Oscar scored Brazil’s goal in the 90th minute.
This wasn’t a team losing. It was a dream dying. There was anger, resentment but also, close to the end, an appreciation of what they were seeing. Schürrle’s second goal prompted a standing ovation. Soon afterwards, Brazil’s fans could be heard shouting olé to every German touch.
Until this stage, Brazil’s matches had been a celebration of colour and noise. So much loud, relentless din. Yet now there was the eery sound of silence and other noises, too. It was something approaching fear, a strange gargled sound that could be heard every time Germany elegantly broke forward, threatening even more humiliation. The sight of Brazil, with all their rich football history, being dismantled this way was actually shocking, in part. What cannot happen, however, is for the story to be all about Brazil’s deficiencies when Germany have just put on one of the all-time performances. It was a masterclass. There is no other word that does it justice and all that is left for Joachim Löw now is to hope his team have not peaked too early.
For Brazil, the inquest will be torturous. It was always going to end in tears but nobody could have imagined that, midway through the first half, the television cameras would already be zooming in on the first sobs. That was at 3-0 and, five minutes later, the score had risen to five. If it had continued at that rate for the rest of the match, Brazil would have sieved 15. And there were times in that first half, as crazy as it sounds, when it did seem as though Germany were genuinely in the mood for double figures.
In the process, Miroslav Klose scored his 16th World Cup goal, removing Ronaldo from the record books with one swish of his right boot. Thomas Müller oozed confidence, scoring his fifth goal of the tournament, and offering the sense that this was all perfectly normal. Mesut Özil did not score but he did enough, all the same, to turn the volume down on some of his critics. Tony Kroos showed –left foot, right foot – why Real Madrid want to take him from Bayern Munich. Kroos, with two goals, was Germany’s outstanding performer, though Sami Khedira was not too far behind.
And Brazil? After all the tributes to Neymar, the brandishing of his No10 jersey during the national anthems and the arrival of the team in “Força Neymar”baseball caps, maybe they should have given more credence to the fact their captain, Thiago Silva, was also missing, without even a fraction of the hysteria. The night was a personal ordeal for Dante, Silva’s replacement, while David Luiz had suddenly become the player, once again, who will always give his opponents a chance.
Brazil’s defending could be neatly encapsulated in that moment, after 11 minutes, when Kroos sent over a corner from the right. Seven players in yellow and blue had joined Júlio César inside the six-yard area. Unfortunately for Brazil, not one of them had bothered picking up Müller and, by the time David Luiz realised there was a man spare, it was too late. Müller’s volley punished Brazil for some of the worst marking imaginable and, after that, it was a full-on disintegration.
Germany sensed their opponents were vulnerable and were absolutely merciless. Kroos’s beautifully weighted through-ball, then Müller’s lay-off, set up Klose to beat Júlio César at the second attempt for 2-0. In the next attack, Philipp Lahm crossed from the right and Müller mis-kicked his attempt at goal. No matter. The ball came out to Kroos on the left and it was a cannonball of a shot for the third goal. Brazil were in disarray and the fourth goal was even worse from their point of view. This time Fernandinho lost the ball to Kroos and from that moment Brazil were in danger.
Kroos advanced on goal, exchanged passes with Khedira and then slotted his shot into a hopelessly exposed goal. By the time Khedira and Özil carved a way straight through the centre of Brazil’s defence and Khedira made it five it was tempting to wonder whether it was ever going to stop.
Brazil were booed off at half-time and the anger manifested itself later in the scapegoating of Fred, the non-scoring striker. Oscar’s 90th-minute goal meant nothing. Schürrle stroked in Lahm’s centre for the sixth goal and then whacked in a shot off the underside of the crossbar. Brazil had been outclassed in every department, from A to Z.
