Bad Moon Rising

Some might believe Brazilians would be devastated by the now historic, whopping, and ground-breaking 7-1 score that Germany applied so drastically to Brazil at the semi-final of this World Cup; a result so unique it even got its own Wikipedia page. Of course this result left many Brazilians dazed and humiliated, as football means a lot here. But as we are an always happy-go-lucky people (maybe too much for our own good), I can attest Brazilians weren't perpetually bummed. In fact, we raised above such event to cheer for this very same Germany at the final, against our ultra rival Argentina.

Many Argentinians crossed the border and made themselves at home here in Brazil without much asking, and by the time of this post, some of them are still here. The surprising thing is that they created a crowd ditty based on a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Bad Moon Rising, mocking us Brazilians for receiving "your daddies at your home". They can be very loud and unpleasant, but kudos for their good taste in music.

However, there might have been a prophetic meaning in the original song that they so blatantly appropriated for themselves. The lyrics by John Fogerty would symbolise the bad times coming Argentina's way, as this was its best generation of players since the 80's, and yet the glories are not coming. Messi and his colleagues are not getting any younger, and they wasted their best shot at a World Cup that they might ever get.

And the song goes:

I see a bad moon rising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes a-blowin',
I know the end is comin' soon,
I feel rivers overflowin',
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Brace yourselves, Argentinians. Hurricanes, earthquakes and rivers overflowin' are coming your way in Russia. And maybe also Qatar.

But at least they reached the final and lost with honour, after a decent campaign; we were iron-branded with a 7-1 mark to our butts in such a fashion Bam Margera would be either proud or jealous. And such result reminded us of everything that was wrong and ignored by the media about our team through the years. That result in Belo Horizonte was a tragedy on the making, supported by a massive hype machine. And while it was indeed shocking, everybody should also know it was logical, as it made sense when it happened, given the circumstances. It was a combination of the utter dedication of Germany and the pedantry of Brazil, both of which coming from way back.

After the triumphs at the 1990 World Cup and the Euro of 1996, Germany passed through a football crisis. It started becoming irrelevant, not imposing the respect it used to, like faded teams such as Uruguay or Hungary. Think of it as an award-winning actor who started making his way into straight-to-DVD movies. Realising that, the German National Team decided something had to be done, and fast. A process of renovation and selection started being made, and the first significant result after years of poor results was reaching the World Cup final of 2002. After a decent campaign, Germany lost the final against Brazil for 2-0. Nevertheless, reaching that far was the result of a work that started being done from the inside. From 2002 to now, Germany made its way to all the semi-finals of both the World Cup and the Euro. Some might say this is the best football generation in the history of the reunited Germany, and a force to be renown in this early century.

Meanwhile, after winning its 5th World Cup title in 2002, the Brazilian National Team started being taken over by a feeling of snobbery. Which is curious since this was definitely not the Brazilian mood before the World Cup in Japan-Korea. During the four years after the 3-0 defeat to France at the World Cup final of 1998, Brazilians were low in confidence: results were poor, coaches came and went, and the team didn't show a lot. There were some victories, but nothing that would give some hope for the incoming World Cup in Asia. The Brazilian team arrived there in a low profile, but it was also a decidedly dedicated and talented team. It was leaded by coach Felipão, who took the job merely one year before the event. And against all the pessimism, his team won that Cup with 9 victories in 9 matches. After that, the esteem was upped to dangerously high levels.

Immediately afterwards, Felipão left Brazil to take over Portugal - by then a modest team in Europe. Apparently, Felipão wanted to get into the hugely profitable European football, which he eventually did... to disappointing results. Carlos Alberto Parreira - who coached Brazil to its 4th World Cup title in USA 1994 - came to take his place. He didn't do a lot to confer some focus and gravitas to the team... in fact, he behaved like a celebrity to the press, philosophising and appearing in comedy sketches and commercials. Nobody even dared to observe the absurdity of all that. Everything was just fine and dandy.

The Confederations Cup is a small tournament that has been happening since 1992, and that in 2005 was adapted to be a test event for the World Cup. It takes place in the host country one year before the main event, and it doesn't really mean anything other than checking for infrastructural elements and raising more money for greedy FIFA. But Brazil's victory in 2005 only made the team and the media surer of how amazing and unstoppable that group was - specially given that the final was a whopping 4-1 result against Argentina. And in the 2006 World Cup, Brazilian players arrived at Germany with their heads so up their own asses that none believed they could leave Europe without the title. I remember those days: to say Brazil wasn't going to win was crazy talk.

But after a modest campaign, Brazil got eliminated at the quarter-finals by once again France, in a show of talent by Zinedine Zidane. The 1-0 score really didn't reflect what was seen in the field, as France just bulldozed Brazil, and if the Brazilian defenders were less compromised at the field, the 7-1 would have come earlier. The Brazilian dream of revenging 1998 was brought down in an unemotional and practical manner.

Immediately, Brazilians started looking for culprits. They wanted heads to roll. People were so obsessed for a scapegoat that they started to incriminate player Roberto Carlos, just for adjusting his socks in the moment of the goal by Thierry Henry. But truth be said, that whole team had this uncontested idea that they were gods among men. Brazil got there promising to show people what they've never seen before, and the result was way lower than the expected. Just like Peter Jackson's King Kong.

Germany was more serious than that, specially in a World Cup at home soil. Now under the tutelage of coach Joachim Löw - who I strongly believe to be Thomas Newman's long lost Teutonic twin - Germany once again made a solid campaign and reached the semi-finals, but lost to Italy for 2-0 during overtime. Germany eventually got a 3rd place against Portugal of Felipão in a 3-1 match. The Portuguese were the greatest revelation of that Cup, with Felipão consolidating himself as one of the greatest coaches in the world at the time, and with Cristiano Ronaldo basically becoming the Leonardo DiCaprio of football - handsome, hyped, very well paid, contested by many, but genuinely talented.

Soon after the Cup, a process of change was due in Brazil. The winner coach of 1994 gave way to the winner captain of 1994, Dunga, who took over the team with an iron hand, as he was determined to fight the stardom and snobbery. It was his very first time as the coach of any team, but he was dead-on set in making that team play seriously. It seems noble, but he was also determined to kill the good football for which Brazil has always been known for, adopting a heavily defensive game. If in one hand, he had a genuine cause of bringing results, on the other, he didn't quite know what he was doing, as poor escalations were a mark of his coaching. Yet, he was presenting results: maybe that was a problem, for it was setting the idea everything was going well, when it wasn't. The victories were mascaraing a deep problem within the team.

Dunga had a tough-as-nails charisma that won over the players and the population, but not the press: he infamously clashed with journalists many times, even for the smallest of provocations. Bizarrely enough, he also wore fabulous outfits during matches, made by his dress designer daughter. The guy looked like Bryan Ferry's biggest fan on the field.

After winning the Copa America and the Confederations Cup, Brazil once again came up as a favourite, but this time, Dunga wanted everyone to focus on team first, on hard work, on showing results on the field. The problem was that he didn't know how to escalate a team, which would depend heavily on defensive bases and individual talents instead of a whole. And so, in 2010 South Africa, after yet another unconvincing campaign, Brazil felt again in a quarter-final, this time against the Netherlands by a turn-around score of 2-1. A melancholic moment of the match was when Felipe Melo - the most symbolic player of Dunga's defensive and ugly football - violently stomped a fallen Robben.

The press torn Dunga apart. It felt incredibly cathartic, they moment journalists were waiting for. But I'll give him this much: he observed the pizzazz that took over the team after 2002. He tried to fight it, but by the wrong means. Meanwhile, Germany once again reached the semi-finals, but lost to Spain by 1-0. It once again got a 3rd place, in a 3-2 match against a surprisingly reascending Uruguay.

All of this leaded to 2014. A desperate Brazil returned to a decadent Felipão. After elevating Portugal from a middle force in Europe to one of the top national squads in the world, he had a disastrous passage through English football. After some misadventures in Uzbekistan, he then returned to Brazil, to one of the clubs where he consecrated himself the most, Palmeiras. Apparently, he wanted to slowly regain the trust of Brazilians, as Palmeiras was the first step towards returning to the National Team. And indeed he did, but from the start, things looked bleak: while Palmeiras won the Cup of Brazil under his leadership, it afterwards got demoted at the Brazilian Championship. And there was that collective delusion that it wasn't his fault, that the club should have hired better players and all that jazz. Now, how would you like knowing that your team would be under the coaching of someone who got his previous team in a quagmire?

The Brazilian National Team was hoping to bring better days, specially in a World Cup at home soil, and after two consecutive failures in quarter-finals. Felipão, however, somehow brought the pizzazz of 2006 back, and on top of that, he created a hostile air against rivals like Spain and Argentina. His speech was that Brazil had the absolute obligation of winning that World Cup at home, and to "avenge" the historical failure of the 1950 World Cup, when Brazil first hosted the tournament, but lost the final to Uruguay for 1-2 at a massively crowded Maracanã Stadium... the so famously branded Maracanazo. It was a second chance, a do-over. It was a dangerous feeling.

Brazil then had yet another deceptive triumph at the Confederations Cup, the third in a row. It was a 3-0 victory in the final at Maracanã, against Spain, which was coming from its second consecutive Euro Cup triumph, but that was in a very evident process of decadence - that Spanish generation that had shone so brightly in the early 2010's had given all it had to give. If Brazil was pressed, Germany arrived at South America with the same compromise of always. The Germans were not adversaries to be scoffed at, but there was being a rumour that they were a "loser generation", for always going so far to no avail. Slowly but certainly, they wanted to disprove that, and without pressure.

Adidas, the official sportswear supplier of the Germans, was smart enough to tap into the Brazilian consciousness, as Germany's second outfit was very similar to that of Flamengo, Brazil's most popular football club (and ironically, used in the fateful semi-final). Podolski - one of the most important members of the German team - went even further by wearing Flamengo's outfit and writing in an impeccable Portuguese. Unlike Argentinian tourists, the German players were actually very cordial visitors.

But their cordiality aside, they meant business right from the start. They scored a 4-0 against Portugal that cost dearly to Cristiano Ronaldo and his team. Then, they had a somewhat surprising 2-2 tie against Ghana - which in the last four years, became one of the main powers of African football. And then they finished the group stage with a 1-0 victory against the United States, guaranteeing them in the round of 16. This match was being previously accused of being a "game of comrades"; a term used when two teams competing against each other have one same goal that both can reach with a specific score. If Germany and America remained tied, they would both go to the round of 16, both reaching 5 points and mathematically leaving Ghana and Portugal behind. But the Germans showed they weren't messing around by winning that match; not that America complained though, as both teams ended up qualified to the next stage nevertheless. Also, if you're waiting for some lame WWII joke, you reached the wrong neighbourhood, chap.

Brazil made a modest apparition on the group stage, which was even more disappointing given the rivals it was going against. It didn't inspire any solid confidence by going 3-1 versus Croatia, 0-0 versus Mexico, or even 4-1 against a terrible, decadent Cameroon - if anything, taking a goal by Cameroon should have been reason to alarm. But if there's one thing we Brazilians are very good at, it's to delude ourselves - in sports, in politics, in life. And everything was believed to be going well, as the team progressed in first place to the round of 16.

Brazil took out Chile, which made a fine appearance in the group stage, but traditionally loses to Brazil. It might have, but that time was difficult, as Brazil only advanced at the penalty shoot-out, after a tough 1-1 match. Once again, Brazil was not sending any real signals that it was going to win that Cup. It simply wasn't the champion on the field, and anyone could see that.

Germany faced Algeria in the round of 16, in what was possibly the most breathtaking game of the Cup. It was a tight 2-1 victory by the Germans, in which all the three goals were only scored in the prorogation time. Algeria earned its surprising classification to the round of 16 in a challenging group with Belgium, Russia and South Korea. Algeria was predicted to be the dead last in its group, the punching bag that would guarantee everybody else three points. But Algeria snatched a second place, and it gave Germans hell from beginning to end. It was a loaded match, full of grudge from the part of the Algerians: At the 1982 World Cup, Algeria surprisingly beat West Germany in the group stage, but was eliminated by - you guessed it - a game of comrades between Germany and Austria. It was a chance for revenge decades later... but Algeria lost with the honour of a mission more than accomplished. Gillo Pontecorvo would be proud. After that, Germany took out France in the quarter-finals by 1-0, making once again its way to the semi-finals. Waiting for a WWII joke again? No sir: not from me.

After Chile, Brazil had another fellow South American contestant on its way for the quarter-finals, the talented team of Colombia. That would be the first real test for Brazil, as the Colombians were making a terrific World Cup that far. Brazil won the match for 2-1, but Brazil's top player, Neymar, left the game seriously injured by a violent - and quite cowardice - intake of Zuñiga from behind. Without Neymar, there was some concerns about the semi-final match against Germany... but this was when the Brazilian pretentiousness shone brighter than anything else. A wild speech that "Germany is naturally scared of Brazil" started circulating, and people started bragging about the final of 2002 - the last meeting of the two teams - as proof of that. The team was inflated with snobbery, stubbornness and arrogance.

The big day arrived. Mineirão Stadium, Belo Horizonte. A crowd of 60 thousand people anxiously awaited for the kick-off, unaware of what fate had stored for them.

At the beginning of the game, it seemed like it was going to be a fair match. Brazil actually took the initiative, and charged the German goal in the first minutes. But things took a nose dive: at 11 minutes, Müller opened the score for Germany. "No panic", I thought. "Just like in the 2002 quarter-final against England. We'll turn this match around yet". Except "we" didn't. Twelve minutes later, Miroslav Klose scored a particularly painful goal: Klose was tied with Brazil's Ronaldo as the top goalscorers in the history of World Cups. And with that goal, Klose took the lead with 16 goals. That and the game was now 2-0. The climate got worst. Two minutes later, Kroos scored two goals in two minutes.

The Brazilian squad was completely lost and confused at the field. It was like in a boxing match, when a boxer lands a punch that hazes his opponent, but doesn't quite bring him down. At 29, Khedira scored another one, leading the Brazilian audience on the stadium to start celebrating the goals, while Brazilians at their homes switched off their televisions and resumed their daily lives. But I had a morbid curiosity in where that game was going. It wasn't even 30 minutes of game yet and the score was 5-0. The game went to half-time, and people were begging for it to end already.

As the second half started, the Germans diminished their pace. And by that, I'm mean Schürrle only scored for Germany two more goals. I feel they had to stop scoring before people started losing count. In the last minute, Oscar scored the goal of honour for Brazil. But there was no honour left. In the end, we realised we saw history in front of our eyes. It was almost like some video game stuff. It was more hardcore than the hardest of German porn you can find.



I can't speak how each and every Brazilian responded to that match, but I can say my emotions changed drastically with the progression of goals. In the first two, I got consumed. By the forth goal, I realised Brazil was going to lose that game, so I made peace with defeat and I started taking it easier. By the fifth goal, I began to think Brazil's suffering at the field was a little funny (I was sad only for goalkeeper Julio Cesar, who was paying for the mistakes of the whole team). My dad went even further; he posted on Facebook a photo of himself celebrating while wearing a Germany jersey right. In the middle of the game.

Germany advanced to the final versus Argentina - a rival both ours and their. It was the third final between the two, after 1986 - won by Argentina in Mexico - and 1990 - won by West Germany in Italy. And after years of serious work, the "loser generation" finally won, with a single goal by Mario Götze in the prorogation time at Maracanã. Like Brazil in 1994 and Italy in 2006, it took exactly 24 years for Germany to be World Champion for the 4th time. A hugely deserving title from a team without a super star, but a team with a team. The first title of the reunited Germany. And an united nation celebrated on its way: by making fun of Argentinians (referred by Germans as "gauchos").



All that was left for Brazil was a lousy 4th place against the Netherlands, in yet another humiliation, albeit a more humble one: a 3-0 defeat. And such was the end of Felipão's second era ahead of the Brazilian National Team: from champion of the world to an aggregated 10-1 defeat. Talk about quitting when you're winning.

But truth be said, Brazil is always served with good players. There are few other countries in the world that have this peculiarity that Brazil has. We're not like Spain, Belgium or Uruguay, in where there needs to be an unique set of players under the right circumstances. While other countries depend of specific generations, we are always served with good crops, even due to our cheer side and our passion for football. All we need is a serious coach and some compromise from players, like in 1994 and 2002.

A lot has been said that this Brazilian team was going to "exorcise" the ghost of 1950, like Max Von Sydow or something. In a way, it did: after such vexation, 1950 became a honourable defeat. The 7-1 made us realise that it was a normal 1-2 defeat to a more focused team. And five World Cups later, I think it's fair to say we got over it.

Both results were let-downs, but this one was surely funny.