I certainly understand people who think sporting events are silly and caring about them passionately is especially silly. I don’t share these people’s opinions, but I can relate to them. There are plenty of things that millions of people think are important and that I think are stupid. The winner of American Idol is an obvious example. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that people are incredibly passionate about World Cup soccer. Nowhere is this more true than in Brazil, where the sport serves as an important part of the national identity. Brazil has never fought in a major war or experienced a major revolution, and its disparate parts are held together by nothing more than by their national football team. This is a team that until yesterday had not lost a meaningful match at home in 39 years. They have won five World Cup championships. The odds that they would lose 7-1 to any team were infinitesimal.
I was rooting for Germany for no other reason than that I have some German blood and that my father-in-law was born in Germany, giving my son even more of a connection. But I actually just felt bad about what happened to Brazil. Thinking about it, this is because the joy Germans experienced in winning so convincingly and advancing to the final was so heavily outweighed by the grief the result caused for millions of Brazilians.
In a real sense, this was a national calamity for Brazil, its people, and even its government which has been under fire for spending $11 billion to host the games.
I had actually predicted that Brazil would lose against Colombia, one round earlier, but they had passed that challenge. I fully expected Germany to win, unlike Nate Silver and most prognosticators. Brazil no longer has the best players in the world, and the German side is absolutely loaded with top club players. But the way it happened, with such suddenness and finality, was stunning.
The people who had been protesting the government’s expenditure on the games put their grievances aside to pull for the national team. Civil unrest may now return with a vengeance. And the worst part is that Brazil’s games are not over. They still have to play the loser of today’s match between Argentina and the Netherlands. That is close to a no-win situation. If Argentina advances to the finals it will break Brazilian’s hearts to see them play even if they lose. If Argentina loses today, then Brazil will probably lose to them in the Third Place match. And South American pride will be wounded if the finals are between Germany and the Netherlands, two European teams.
What a calamity!
That was just an unbelievable drubbing, Brazil took.
Deadspin had an article that put it in historical perspective, and yikes, what a disaster.
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I’m no soccer fan, but there are certainly worse things to be (being a NY Giants fan, for instance). But even I feel for Brazil. All our southern neighbors take these games very personally. It’s always a sad day at work when Mexico loses, particularly against the US. It really is a big deal to them.
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The Giants do have SuperBowl rings. Try being a fan of the Jaguars or the LA Clippers before 2009. I can relate to the suffering a little seeing my Lakers suck last season.
Specifically, die Mannschaft is loaded with Bayern Munich players, who won the Bundesliga by 19 points with a +71 goal differential. Yow.
I expected Brazil to turn into a massive riot if they lost at any point. Yesterday, they just seemed too stunned to manage it. I know this may yet get ugly, but it looks as if their protest may focus more on how the government has behaved than on losing a ball game. I feel for them, as no one should lose that badly, but I hope this situation at least either reduces the violences or focuses it on something meaningful.
I know all this stuff matters, especially to Brazilians, but I can’t stop thinking that any alien civilization who observed all this drama over a game would either find the human race to be ridiculously silly, or mistake soccer for some sort of religious ritual.
The same thing goes for all of sports, really. And I think this despite (maybe because of?) my love of sports. I’m as goofy as they come in this regard.
I’ve been very pleased and surprised by the good sportsmanship of this Cup. Players from opposing teams helping each other up, no truly egregious fouls (well, except for that biting thing), an especially seeing Brazil’s Luiz comfort Colombia’s James after Colombia lost. Which is why it was so sad to watch Luiz’s devastated, tearful interview after yesterday’s match.
On a somewhat less serious note, how did the US hold Germany to one goal? Does this mean we have a better team than I thought? Or did they just not want to be too hard on Jürgen Klinsmann?
Maybe Klinsmann knew how to play the Germans. He was their coach for the ’06 World Cup after all. And he played for them in multiple World Cups as well.
The USA played a very defensive game, and from what I’ve seen the Germans do not take chances on defense to try and make something happen on offense. Germany mainly takes what their opponents give them.
Germany was toying with them in the second half. The US didn’t even attempt to possess the ball. Everyone on the field knew Germany was vastly better.
Brazil has never fought in a major war or experienced a major revolution, …
They lived under a military dictatorship for how many years?
I was going to bring that up. How about visionary leadership that ended slavery without a war? How about their activists being the country’s leadership? Brazil rocks.
Booman Say What?
Sure I have some mitleid [sympathy] with the Brazilian fans and for Brazil as Host, but what was the German team to do, shave points or throw the game? Obviously not.
Since you mention it, as a matter of fact Brazil did fight on the Allied side during WWII.
Brazil played a very rough game against Columbia, fouling them repeatedly and essentially fouling James into ineffectuality. In most of their games, they played in a thuggish and churlish manner. I have a little sympathy, but only a very little.
Booman, I agree with you on most everything. But in this case I think you’re whacked. Yes, there are many sports fanatics who take things really seriously and, in this case, it’s a national team engaged in its most important national sport in a year when they’re hosting the event. But boo hoo hoo; they lost a frickin’ game. No one died. The sun will continue to rise and set just as before. Brazilians are fully capable of understanding this.
Claiming superiority of some country because their team wins an athletic event is just racism, at best jingoism. It’s the athletes that win, not their nation or political system.
Sport is metaphor. Teams most often reflect the realities that are dominant in their locality.
They are usually built by successful corporatists, people who know how to play the corporate game in their own locale.
Their players and coaches mostly come from the lower middle/working/poverty classes, which usually comprise the overwhelming majority of the population in most systems and which also dictate the popular social, moral and cultural ethos of a given society.
They are sustained by a fan base that also reflects the numerical and class majorities in their area. Just listen to sports radio to understand the truth of that statement. This applies to local clubs and it also applies to national franchises. Brazil’s World Cup team, the U.S. team, the German team and the rest…they are all microcosms of how those various countries are actually operating. Been to Brazil? It’s brilliant, highly emotional, somewhat sloppy and prone to goofing off/sulking/getting high when it should be working. It likes to take shortcuts, too. Germany? Nose to the grindstone, methodical as can be. Clomp, clomp, clomp but always on target and absolutely unforgving of mistakes. Brazil is in deep trouble these days, considering the way the government is dissing its poorest citizens in order to get on the international glitz and money train. Germany is thriving, although a great deal of the success of Western Europe in general is gathering steam from the right-wing rebound of the last decade or so.
It’s all push-and-pull.
Economics and sports both.
Argentina vs. Germany?
Argentina’s not doing so well either. Lots of financial problems for the people there, according to my Argentinian friends. Lots of dissatisfaction regarding how things are being run. Lots of unwanted stasis. My bet? Germany will be patient; Argentina will be a little over the top, but it won’t make the same kind of flashy mistakes that beat Brazil. Germany wins in a low scoring game. More fodder for the ongoing right-wing Western European Spring.
So it goes.
Watch.
AG
P.S. It looks like that European Spring is actually winning in Ukraine as well. Putin seems frozen in place by whatever backdoor threats and deals the NATO powers have delivered sotto voce since the Crimea takeover. Stuff’s turning right everywhere in the developed world….all a delayed reaction to the Arab Spring thing. 2014’s gonna be an interesting election in the U.S. as well. More reaction. Bet on it. Watch.
P.P.S. I don’t like Germany. I’ve spent substantial time in most Western European countries, and Germany is very low on my list. No sense of humor and stiff as a board. It wins things though. I shopped long and hard before I bought the cars I have owned, and German cars…first Audis (when their value tanked…thank you, CBS and Sixty Minutes. Bullshit U.S. news reporting at its absolute worst.) and now VW…were the winners 6 out of 8 times.
P.P.P.S. Ain’t life grand? We have a new alliance, now!!! Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and the NATO powers are all in against the ISIS guys. That “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” idea sure does make for some strange bedfellows, eh? Kinda like Nat Hentoff and Rand Paul. And…errr, ahhh…me. So that goes as well.
I agree, the defeat of Brazil was predictable. The stunning defeat of Nate Silver’s prediction is utterly shocking! Apparently the historic stats of elections in U.S. politics offer much more in facts and relationships than the unpredictable game of soccer/football.
Looking at his work for ESPN, I find it shockingly naive how NS made the prediction Brazil would beat Germany. Don’t use stats of previous teams and tournaments to predict matches underway in the World Cup 2014. Teams change, coaches are adept in tactics and goalscoring ability of players in form. We haven’t seen a Robin van Persie after his phenominal goals against Spain in the first match!
The Dutch shut out Messi (debut at Barcelona under Van Gaal) by forcing the attack to Argentina’s left side especially in the second half by moving Dirk Kuyt to the left back position. The Dutch controlled the game by a high posession rate and Messi was forced to midfield to pick up the ball: 50 meters from the goal. The Argentinians did the same with Arjen Robben who likes to start from the right side of the field and cut inside for a shot with his favorite left foot.
Knowing he would play a defensive game to prevent the other side from scoring, Van Gaal made a crucial mistake. With a high probabilty of going into overtime and penalties he should have started with ‘penalty killer’ Tim Krul as keeper. This time, Van Gaal had to use all his substitutes (3) during the match and couldn’t switch keepers for the penalty shootout. Keeper Celissen has yet to stop his first penalty compared to the favorite posture and length of Newcastle United keeper Krul. Going into the penalty shootout, my prediction for a Argentina win went up to 100%.
The best team of this tournament, Germany, will win the World Cup. A stunning upset as a European national team never won on the American continent. In reverse, only once did a South American nation win in Europe: Brazil in Sweden edging the host nation 5-2 in 1958. A young Brazilian star named Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) was the surprise of the tournament.
○ Pelé and Garrincha – Gods of Brazil (Documentary)
I don’t fault Silver on this. He’s used this methodology for a long time and he stuck with it. He’s a stats guy, not an expert football analyst, so it would be a mistake if he tried to go beyond his data model. Then he’d just be another guy talking out of his ass.
I hope Silver learned a lesson about the limitations of his methodology when applied to events that are more volatile than elections, like sports.
I agree that Germany is the obvious favorite at this point. But as for this:
A stunning upset as a European national team never won on the American continent.
For most of the history of the world cup the ugly reality was that any referee who allowed a non-European team to win the cup in South America would have an extremely short life expectancy. And the referee calls reflected this sad reality, all the way through the Argentina victory over West Germany in Mexico City in 1986.
But things have changed a lot in the last half century, not the least being World Cup security. (By the way, a little reported story from yesterday is that FIFA arranged in advance, just in case, for German fans to have security escorts with them while they left the stadium.) Also, with TV scrutiny officiating is much better and the game is more tightly officiated (watch video of the 1982 Germany-France match to see how ugly it used to be).
Since 1986 there has been no comparable event. Yes, Brazil won in the US on 1994 keeping the streak alive, but it was on penalty kicks and there would not have been riots if they had lost. 1998 was France, 2002 in east Asia, 2006 in Germany, 2010 in South Africa. This is the first cup in Latin America in 24 years and in South America in 32 years. I had wondered before the cup if there would be signs of fan violence if favored South American teams lost, but it was clear from very early on that the futbol fanship is very, very different than it used to be.
I wish I liked soccer, because it would be nice to have that in common with the rest of the world.
It surprisingly overtook me – I didn’t grow up with soccer. For me, it goes back to 2004. That year, certain groups of Americans were actively rooting against Team USA basketball because they didn’t like the (n-word)s on the team. I was irate because I never knew that it was OK for Americans to root against Team USA, especially “in a time of war”™ as they were fond of saying at that time. So in 2006 when the World Cup came around I decided to return the favor and actively root against Team USA.
It backfired.
Ended up liking the sport and pulling for Team USA, but I still ride for the Black Stars of Ghana.
Huh. I thought the protests had shut down because the government cracked down against the protests with such violence.
The government of Brazil is spending billions on the World Cup while doing serious harm to its citizens. What about all the people losing their homes, their neighborhoods, and their lives?
And I’m supposed to feel bad that Brazil got their asses kicked?
When Brazil cares more about hosting and winning at soccer than they care about the people of Brazil, that’s a problem. I can’t for the life of me understand why that doesn’t seem to matter. Sometimes it seems like Dave Zirin is the only journalist or blogger who cares about the people of Brazil.
When Brazil cares more about hosting and winning at soccer than they care about the people of Brazil, that’s a problem.
Unfortunately, you can replace the word “Brazil” with the names of the American cities which, in the 20 years since the World Cup was held here, have built or started building extravagant tax-payer funded/subsidized stadia replacing perfectly good stadia already in place. This includes (some cities are guilty of double-stadia): Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Phoenix, Denver, Minnesota twin cities, Chicago (you don’t get out of this list by building the new stadium in the shell of the old one), Milwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Northern New Jersey, Massachusetts.
Please tell me we didn’t throw people out of their homes in the process and didn’t react with violence when they protested.
*Though I’m sure protests would have met with violence if it happened today, what with the US seeming to be on the way to being a police state.
(Toys. Military toys or not, if you have toys, you want to use them.)
○ Match Hospitality, 5% owned by Philippe Blatter’s company Infront Sports
I have to correct a statement in your post, though this is tangential to your main point:
“Brazil has never fought in a major war … “
Brazil fought a very major war against Paraguay from 1864 to 1870, with Argentina and Uruguay eventually becoming involved as well. “It caused … one of the highest ratios of fatalities to combatants of any war in South America in modern history. It particularly devastated Paraguay, which suffered catastrophic losses in population and was forced to cede territory to Argentina and Brazil.”
….
“The outcome of the war was the utter defeat of Paraguay. After its defeat in conventional warfare, Paraguay conducted a drawn-out guerrilla-style resistance, resulting in the destruction of the Paraguayan military and much of the civilian population. The guerrilla war lasted until López was killed by Brazilian forces on 1 March 1870. Estimates of total Paraguayan losses range from 300,000 to 1,200,000. It took decades for Paraguay to recover from the chaos and demographic imbalance.
“In Brazil, the war helped bring about the end of slavery, moved the military into a key role in the public sphere, and caused a ruinous increase of public debt, which took a decade to pay off, seriously reducing the country’s growth. It has been argued the war played a key role in the consolidation of Argentina as a nation-state.[5] That country became South America’s wealthiest nation, and one of the wealthiest in the world, by the early 20th century.[6] It was the last time that Brazil and Argentina took such an interventionist role in Uruguay’s internal politics.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War
In added time, Dutch player Wijnaldum joined the fray to score his first international goal and seal Brazil’s fate. Two successive losses on home soil happened only once before in 1940. Two losses during a World Cup happened only once in 1974 – one of the matches was against the truly brilliant Oranje of Johan Cruijff.
This World Cup has been unpredictable and we have seen some great matches. Team Oranje will leave Brazil without a defeat!
Brazilians are truly devastated after the high expectation of football’s highest honor, winning the World Cup on home soil. The 1950 defeat to Uruguay has been compounded by hard lessons from European football of the modern game this time around. Many Brazilians who took part in the protests have turned away from the game and corruption in the football association.
Well Champion will be known soon..
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Singapore Airport Transfer