Wednesday 9 July 2014

BRAGER - the sacking of football's utopia

One could sense shock and awe last night, not just on the faces of the Brazillian's but in the voices of the MoTD team. Hansen in particular seemed inconsolable, wallowing in the short coming of the host nation with a level of feeling he can't muster when Scotland once again fail to qualify. Resentful of Shearer's efforts to talk about how good Germany were, he was even more fixated than usual on what went wrong for the losers.

Last night football's utopia burned, a fantasy land where all that is good in the game still thrives was demolished. It is a place where the beautiful game is played, in the sunshine, watched by beautiful women in a simpler land. This is a wonderful contrast to our blunt soggy nations long balls and hooligans. While Brazil were winning world cups in the 50's and 60's I guess it must have been 1970 when they blazed into the a British psychie. Technicolor football in the first colour TV World Cup. Since then pundits have placed Brazil in a different place to all other teams. Despite their own World Cup pedigrees Italy and Germany come nowhere close. Last night Germany showed the world that Brazil were just another football team, a mediocre side save for the absent genius of Neymar. And that is what was so hard to swallow, that no Santa Claus moment for those grown up kids that still wanted to believe. Like the smell of tear gas told us that the Brazillian's are more complex than the depictions of a childlike nation suggest, this football collapse reminds us that know team has footballs holy grail forever.

But to be honest much of the worshipping of Brazil doesn't stand up to close examination. There have been brilliant Brazil Teams since1970 and some that were just very  good. While in tht Pele era their stars were rarely seen by European players or supporters, now they are just a part of the global football machine. Familiarity should be rendering wish fulfilment impossible. But we still want to believe there is a better place, just too far away to see clearly. Last night we learned it doesn't exist. 

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