It just ain't football!

As I'd said at the beginning, I'm an ardent supporter of Brazil and, like all Brazilians do, want the team to lift the FIFA World Cup '14 - their sixth shot at the crown and that too, on their home soil. But after its last game against Colombia, I've begun to have a rethink! The reason is simple......they seem to want the cup at any cost and consequently, look at the mess that they've ended up with.

Let me recapitulate the events and the causative factors leading to the disaster:-

      (a) Brazil had committed 31 fouls, thereby, stretching the laws of the game to the limits.
      (b) Their coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, is the villain responsible for killing Brazil's naturally
            beautiful game, because of his thought process that fouls are a tactical resource to ultimate
            victory.
      (c) The Spaniard match referee, Carlos Velasco, waited for 41 fouls to pull out his first yellow
            card and this leniency(?) saw both the teams indulging in the free use of tactical fouling.
            He's the other villain of the piece!
      (d) In the dying minutes of the game, the Colombian defender, Juan Zuniga, went airborne and
           drove his knee into the lower back of the Brazilian hero, Neymar, resulting in a cracked third
           vertebra for the latter that would keep him off from the rest of the proceedings!

What a shame? Is this what we get from the country that gave us Pele, Garrincha and Jairzinho and their fabulous mastery of the game?


Tailpiece.

I alter my earlier stand and say......may the best team win!