Germans humiliate Brazil 7-1, advance to finals
I never expected Germany to beat Brazil like this. There were shades of George Foreman pole-axing Joe Frazier in Jamaica many moons ago. It was a beautiful evening at Estadio Mineirao in Belo Horizonte for match No. 61 of the 2014 FIFA World Cup featuring the host nation Brazil facing the highest-rated team left in the tournament, Germany, for the right to move on to Sunday's championship game.
Goalkeeper Julio Cesar and defender David Luiz held the jersey of Neymar, who was out of this game because of a fractured vertebra in his lower back. He was replaced by Bernard, starting the biggest game of his life. Brazil also played without its best defender, Thiago Silva, because of yellow cards. Over 58,000 fans, most of them wearing the yellow jersey of Brazil, were on hand to see if their underdog team could pull out the victory.
Brazil opened on the attack, but the German defense was stout and to the task. In the 11th minute, Thomas Mueller collected Toni Kroos' beautifully-placed corner kick, and banged it past a diving Julio Cesar and it was 1-0.
Then, between the 23rd and 29th minutes, Brazil fell apart. On the attack, Toni Kroos took a great crossing pass, fed super scorer Miroslav Klose, he collected his own rebound and rammed it past Cesar for his 16th career World Cup Goal - a record. Less than two minutes later in the 25th minute, Mesut Ozil passed to Philipp Lahm, then on to Kroos for the goal. Less than a minute later, Kroos scored his 2nd goal of the game and it was 4-0. And 3 minutes after that, Ozil fed Sami Khedira and he slammed the orb past a stunned Julio Cesar and Brazil was getting its rear end kicked 5-0. There was not enough time for me to write all this down, it happened that fast. Brazilian coach Luiz Felipe Scolari had nothing of substance to say at the half to his team that, quite frankly, just plain quit after the 3rd goal.
Compared to the first half, the second half was a walk in the park. In the 69th minute Andre Schuerrle beat Cesar, the Brazilian fans whistled lustily. In the 79th minute Schuerrle scored his second goal of the match- the most goals scored in a World Cup Semi-final. Without Neymar and Thiago Silva, Brazil was a shell of itself. No doubt Scolari will catch a lot of heat from the Brazilian press corps because this was as big an embarrassment that this great soccer playing nation has suffered. The final score was Germany 7, Brazil 1.
On Wednesday, Germany will find out who they will play in the title game. Will it be the team I think will win, Argentina, or will the Netherlands, a slight underdog, pull it out? Stay tuned.
