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Even those who couldn’t care less about soccer and didn't catch the Mundial fever, couldn’t help
but be astounded by the unprecedented 7:1 score in Germany-Brazil World Cup
semi-final match. The historic defeat
has spawned reactions that have been resonating throughout the globe.
Amidst all the hubbub, the controversy, the mourning and the
wailing, something stuck with me. And it kept haunting me because it seemed not
to have received much weight or attention (at least not that I noticed) in
global rehashing of the dismal humiliation.
For, just days prior to the fateful debacle, the host team
of the World Cup watched in stunned shock as their star player, forward Neymar
was carried off the field in a stretcher after serious vertebrae injury in the
quarter-final duel with Columbia. To add insult to injury, there were no
disciplinary actions against Columbian player Zuniga – not even a yellow card,
who shrugged the incident with little more than an “Oh well such are the rules of the game…”
In addition to this, Brazil ’s
captain and top defender, Thiago Silva, received a yellow card – his second during
the World Cup - which banned him from playing in the match against Germany .
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With not one but two key players out of commission, the Brazilians entered the semi-finals shattered beyond what
any self-help pep talk, any training, any experience on the soccer field could
remedy.
And with their devastating loss that shook the foundations
of the prestigious competition they might have taught us that sometimes in life
there are more important things than winning the World Cup. Something that is so easily lost in the heat of the game and the cut-throat competition... so easily forgotten when our eyes are focused on the prize...
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