Tunku Varadarajan in The Daily Beast:
One has to believe that Brazil was at the receiving end of some great celestial wrath. In the days before the game, there was talk of nothing else but Neymar, Brazil’s key striker and talisman, who was to miss the semifinal due to an injury inflicted on him in the quarters. The team and its management wallowed in self-pity, dwelling more on his loss—and the loss, also, of captain Thiago Silva, owing to an accumulation of yellow cards—than on the Germans. In being so wrapped in resentment over the absent Neymar, they paid the Germans scant respect. There has been a palpable hubris in Brazil these last weeks, hubris as thick as the local feijoada. Brazilians have felt entitled to this World Cup, forgetting the truth that this Brazil team is probably the worst to have taken the field for the country.
Brazilian strategy, from the start of the cup, was four-pronged: Make teams play you on reputation, not on true ability; let Neymar score the goals (since nobody else can); let Thiago Silva marshal a semblance of defense; and let the crowd do the rest. That strategy unraveled completely Tuesday night, in the face of a massacre.
More here.
Also see this (thanks to Brooks Riley): If Milton Did Post-Match Analysis for Germany-Brazil.
