Divine Retribution for professional Brazilian football

So Brazil, once the benchmark by which all football related flair was judge have been astonishingly humiliated at a World Cup semi final that they staged in their own backyard. From the moment the first shambles of a goal went in, an incredible weakness within the Brazilian team's ranks was exposed, and the German team ensured that this one one humiliation that Brazil's national team would not be able to duck, or cover up. For me, the nature of the defeat, if defeat is even enough of a word to describe what happened to the Brazilian national team last night, makes the likelihood of divine intervention in last night's events the most plausible explanation for what transpired. Never before in a game of that magnitude have I witnessed a demolition such as the one which I witnessed during the first half of last night's semi final. Brazil shipped 5 goals in the space of around twenty minutes - this is the kind of thing that you would expect Germany or Brazil themselves to be doing to a Faeroe Island or San Marino team, and even now, to be fair to the development of those teams, this kind of spectacle would be unlikely to occur.

It wasn't just the fact that they shipped 5 goals so quickly - it was also, for me, the manner of the goals. Brazil looked weak, and afraid - they could hardly pass the ball to each other. None of Germany's goals in the first half (I don't know about the second half, cos I had switched off by around 60 minutes) were 30 yard screamers, or thunderous headers, or involved any pieces of incredible skill - three out of the five goals, if I remember correctly, were simply passed into the net by the German players.

Divine retribution is the most likely explanation for me as professional Brazilian football, as an industry, has for decades now committed numerous offences against the national people of Brazil, and now I'm going to go through a few of them....

1. Firstly, it must be remember that 8 workers passed form whilst working on building the stadiums for this world cup. This is something that I haven't heard mentioned once throughout all of the coverage of the tournament, and being a football lover, I have watched almost every game of this tournament. It would have been fitting for the players, or officials, or both to do some kind of memorial for those workers at the beginning of the tournament, and if they did do one then I apologise, but having watched the whole of the opening ceremony, again, I did not see one mention for them. May they rest in peace.

2. The cost of staging the world cup. This article by the Bleacher report http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1845944-how-much-has-hosting-the-world-cup-cost-brazil says that Bloomberg have estimated the cost of staging the tournament to be around $14 billion. There were riots and mass protests last year about this very subject. Who's knows how much Fifa has made from it, over and under the table.

3. The lack of Moorish influence in the Brazilian national team. Throughout the decades every brazilian national team has been very melanated. If you look at the pictures of the nationals teams I've shown below you'll see that most of them are made up by at least 50% of very melanated players. It does however, become less melanated as the teams get closer to the modern day, and the team which played yesterday was arguably the least melanated a Brazil team to have ever contested a world cup semi final, and let it not be forgotten that Pele himself is highly melanated Moor...

1958

1962

1966

1970

1974

1978

1982

2014

"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land"

4. Then we have the concentration on a European style of play. Why would the 5 times winners of the world cup feel that they need to change their style of play in order to 'keep up' with the rest of world in terms of football? There is a lot more to the Brazilian adoption of the European style of play, and desire for their players to be more 'physical' in build than I will go into at this time - that can be left for it's own post. But I will say now that it is my reckoning that it is related to the rise of German football, and later Spanish football, as well as the Nazis who went to Brazil in operation Paperclip. Needless to say that the change of style has clearly been unbeneficial to the success of the national team.

5. Nike's sponsorship of the Brazilian national team. For a more in depth look into this point check out this article from the Guradian http://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jul/09/marketingandpr.worldcupfootball2002. Brazil reputedly had/have a contract with Brazil that Nike can chose 5 internationals for Brazil to play each year where at least 8 first team regulars must be present. Getting involved with Nike, for any sportsman or team is never a good idea, and it is no coincidence that Brazil's decline has correlated with their increased involvement with Nike.