On Friday night, Brazilians celebrated reaching the World Cup semi-final.
By Saturday morning, a sense of gloom had descended over the country.
Brazil had scraped through the quarter-final against Colombia, after James Rodriguez's penalty reduced the Selecao's defenders to a panicked rabble for the last 10 minutes. Captain Thiago Silva is also suspended from the semi-final against Germany.
Even worse, the team’s superstar, Neymar, will take no more part in Brazil’s quest for gold. It could prove a fatal blow for the team.
Read more: Neymar out of World Cup after vertebra factured against Colombia
Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side have been in patchy form and this setback will end any doubt among their many critics that Brazil are not good enough to win the World Cup.
The absence of their inspirational top scorer is huge.
It will hit the team psychologically, too, as Neymar was the major creative spark – a man who could produce something out of nothing in a tough, workmanlike team.
Neymar has scored four goals and set up one. He also netted the decisive penalty in the shoot-out against Chile in the last 16.
Since his debut in 2010, he has often carried the team. His 35 international goals have come in 54 matches. Except for a penalty shoot-out loss to Uruguay at the 2011 Copa America, Brazil have never lost a competitive match in which Neymar has played. That includes five matches (and four goals) at last year’s Confederations Cup.
Without Neymar, this Brazil squad is in uncharted waters.
Often Brazil’s plan has seemed little more than “give the ball to Neymar and hope for the best”. Plan A is no longer an option and on Friday night’s evidence it appears that Plan B is to kick the opponent’s star man – in Friday’s case Rodriguez – out of the game.
That will not work against Germany in the semi-final, who aren’t reliant on individual stars.
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Injuries have often changed the course of World Cup history.
Ferenc Puskas’s injury at the 1954 final was one of the major factors behind Hungary’s 3-2 defeat to West Germany, a team they had thrashed 8-3 in the group stages. Hungary’s star player played, and scored, in the final, but it will never be known what impact he might have had if he had played free of the hairline fracture of the ankle suffered in that first meeting.
England fans believe it was Gordon Banks’s absence through a stomach bug that led to the 3-2 loss against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final.
Replacement Peter Bonetti became the scapegoat as England threw away a two-goal lead.
It need not be all doom for Brazil and fans may wish to draw on two incidents of past tournaments.
The first was at the 1962 World Cup in Chile. Pele, at the height of his powers, was injured in the second group match against Czechoslovakia and had to miss the rest of the tournament. They need not have worried.
Garrincha stepped up to deliver some of Brazil’s most inspired performances, leading his nation to a 3-1 win over the same opponents in the final.
The second came 20 years later. Giancarlo Antognoni was Italy’s best player as they stunned the sport by beating a wonderful Brazil team 3-2 at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
In the following match, the semi-final against Poland, Antognoni suffered an injury that would keep him out of the final. It hardly mattered. By that point Italy, with striker Paolo Rossi in the form of his life, were unstoppable, winning their third title with a 3-1 win over West Germany.
The problem for Brazil is that they are neither in unstoppable form, nor do they have a Garrincha in the wings.
I do not think they can rely on Fred, Hulk or Jo stepping up to fill Neymar’s shoes.
akhaled@thenational.ae
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