Brazil is a strong country.
As a nation we are constant witnesses to daily displays of government corruption when most of the time nothing is done about it.
We pay astronomically high taxes that fuel this same corruption. We deal with extreme violence every single day. We see our beautiful country’s vast natural resources being devastated every single day.
And as Brazilians we all know what we do, we turn to football, every time Brazil enters the field. We look to cover up all the bad stuff that goes on with brilliant football. This is because, simply, it is what we have to offer, and it is all we can do. We play to our strengths.
We try to show with this simple and beautiful game that we can still be winners that we can still succeed, that we can overcome the challenges we face every day, all through something as simple as the roll of a ball into a goal.
So when our strengths don’t save our country, we are exposed, we feel ashamed, we are weak.
I feel embarrassed today. I feel crushed. Not only because of the devastating final score, but because I know how much each and every Brazilian relies on football for their ‘fix of happiness’. It’s our drug. It’s what we are good at. To be proven wrong on this is not easy to take.
It was hard to believe every single German goal going in tonight. It all happened so quickly and, as the score rose in Germany’s favour, the whole country came down from its World Cup high, slowly, just like junkies crashing after a hit. It is hard to regain your balance as a Brazilian after all that. We feel lost.
The word humiliation was said many times tonight. I don’t like that word. It makes me feel ashamed of who I am, of where I come from.And I honestly don’t feel that. I’m proud, I’ve always been proud. Because we are more than football, we have always been much more than just football. We just can’t really control how the outside world sees us.
The thing about Brazil, proven many a time through the internal struggles we face as a country, is that we don’t give up. Yes, it may have seem like we did tonight, but the disappointment of taking 5 goals in less than 20 minutes cannot NOT affect a team. I still saw some bravery, skill (even if not enough) and speed till the end. Nothing that changed the game results, of course, but we were still there fighting. Brazilian spirit was still there, battered but not broken.
There will be other World Cups. There will be other winners and we will still lose many times. It’s part of any game. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. You just have to believe that next time things will be different. We Brazilians always believe, and this makes us strong. Always.
See you in 2018.
