The 2014 World Cup produced a semi-final that nobody will ever forget.
It was chaotic and yet also ruthless, and it began with 30 minutes which was so humiliating that it
amounted to a national tragedy and left a sporting wound which will never fully heal.
This is the story of Brazil 1, Germany 7.
When host national Brazil progressed to the semi-final of their own tournament,
they could afford to feel quietly confident. In the first knockout stage they had survived
a stern examination by Chile to win on penalties and then, against Colombia,
in an enormously physical encounter, a fabulous David Luiz free-kick saw them
prevail 2-1 over what, to that point, had been one of the teams of the tournament.
The game cost them Neymar, who would miss the semi-final with a back injury,
but with every round momentum had been building and the emotional, a cappella
rendition of the Brazilian national anthem ahead of their
games depicted a country surfing a wave of optimism towards footballing destiny.
And why shouldn’t they have been confident? Brazil had not lost a World Cup semi-final
in 76 years and had not been beaten in a competitive match at home in 39 years.
Enter: the Germans. Since qualifying from their group,
they’d needed extra-time to beat Algeria and had scored a single goal to squeeze past France.
Nobody could have foreseen what followed.
Brazil actually started well, with Marcelo enjoying the first real chance of the game.
After 11 minutes, everything changed:
Thomas Miller was left hopelessly free from a corner and he volleyed past Julio Cesar. It
was the beginning of the most extraordinary 18 minutes in international footballing history.
On 23 minutes, it was 2-0: Miroslav Klose tucked away
a rebound to become the highest goalscorer in World Cup history.
Almost from the kick-off it was 3-0, when Toni Kroos beat Cesar at his near-post and
then celebrated by holding his hands to his face in disbelief.
The fourth Germany goal followed two minutes later,
when Fernandinho was uncharacteristically robbed of possession just in front of his
own box and Kroos, again, tapped home after a one-two with Sami Khedira.
And 28 minutes, it was five:
Khedira turned scorer after Mesut Ozil had tied the Brazilian defence into a knot.
Tactically, it was an extraordinary collapse. The Brazilian midfield was non-existent,
their defence – which was admittedly without captain and lynchpin Thiago Silva – seemed
confused and desperate, and was constantly chasing back into position. Emotionally,
too, the Brazilian players seemed incapable of processing the crisis developing around them.
And that wasn’t just on the pitch. As the television cameras cut to the stands,
the reactions of the home fans – with their
replica shirts and painted faces – grew more extreme with each goal conceded.
It was an extraordinary spectacle to witness,
as The Athletic’s Daniel Taylor, who was in Belo Horizonte reporting for The Guardian, recalled:
“There was a point, after 0-0 had raced to 0-5 in the space of 18 minutes,
when the goals were coming too quickly to take accurate notes,
there were people screaming – literally screaming – beside the pressbox.”
The first line of Taylor’s match report described the
game as “the night Germany removed the crown from football royalty”.
It might even have been more humbling. Remembering his team’s dressing-room at half-time, with a 5-0
lead and a place in the final secure, German head-coach Jogi Loew recalls urging restraint.
“I didn’t want anyone to make a fool of the Brazilians in front of an audience of millions.
The respect the Brazilians showed to us, across the country, was enormous. And for me, it was
completely unthinkable that we should humiliate them, or to show arrogance towards them.”
The second-half passed in a blur. Germany would score another two goals, almost apologetically,
and Oscar would also pull one back, but the damage had been done long before.
At full-time, several of the Brazilian players were inconsolable, more than one of them was
in tears, as the Estadio Mineirao hummed with boos and the whole world shook its head with disbelief.
“I was watching at home with my wife and, after the third goal went in,
she started to cry,” said Tite, who led Brazil in the 2022 World Cup.
“That started me off. The 7-1 is like a ghost. It’s present. People still talk about it,
but the more you talk about it, the less likely it is that the ‘ghost’ disappears.”