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Greetings from Brazil: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is transposed on to the famous Rio statue

Hildegarde The Arena
I HAD not put my money on the boys from the land of samba when they played Germany in Tuesday’s semi-final match. Football pundits had told me not to waste my time supporting the host nation for the 2014 Fifa World Cup, because they were certain that Brazil was not going to break the German machine.

And now, how the mighty have fallen! It was a record-breaking defeat and the humiliation is beyond proportion.
Some Zimbabweans argued that Brazil’s performance on Tuesday was so dismal that even our Warriors would have defeated them with such a margin.

Although it had seemed probable that Brazil, Le Seleção, might play Argentina in the final, it remained a pipe-dream as Brazil suffered the mother of all defeats for a host nation as Germany trounced them 7-1.

It brought anguish and tears on Brazil’s 200 million people. One sports reporter remarked, “Everywhere you looked there were tears. They rolled down the faces of small bespectacled boys and anguished old ladies and through the face paint of the hopeful masses who dreamed — no, expected — so, so much more”.

There is a funeral mood and feeling in Brazil, and this is understandable because they never believed that they would be reduced to underdogs like what happened on Tuesday, and entering the Guinness book of records for the wrong reasons.

Despite the fault lines that football fans had noted in their earlier matches, they still cannot understand how a great team like Brazil could have fallen so mightily considering that they had all the support.

Brazil is the home of soccer, the home of Pele, so how could the people who eat, drink and think soccer have performed so dismally and embarrassingly?

The 200 million people of the South American nation yesterday woke up to the shock and reality that not only had their team failed to qualify to the grandest stage in world football, but that Tuesday’s match has also become a topical issue around the world.

The figure 7 has turned magical and is now being used against Brazil every which way. Maybe the feeling will die down after the final match.
Thanks also to social media, the comical but tragic effect is being shared all over the globe and people are having a good laugh as their artistic creativity goes into over drive.

Heartbreak: Brazil fans show their anguish as Germany scored goal after goal in Belo Horizonte

Twitter is smiling all the way to the bank as reports claim that the defeat broke Twitter records. According to a BBC report, “a record 35.6 million tweets were sent during the 90-minute game.” They included Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s tweet: “Like all Brazilians, I am very, very sad after the defeat. But we will not let ourselves be broken.”

The BBC report adds that the defeat “also broke the tweets-per-minute record, when the fifth goal triggered 580,601 in one minute. Miroslav Klose was the most tweeted German player, followed by midfielder Toni Kroos. Julio Cesar, Oscar and Fred were the most tweeted Brazilian players.”
The report claims that “many of the tweets took a wry look at the routing of Brazil, with some pointing out that Germany were scoring faster than they could type 140 characters.”

Many digitally altered images are doing the rounds, for example the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
The outstretched arms on the Jesus-like statue have been photo-shopped to show it crying and some have accompanied it with the message from the gospel of John 11:35, “Jesus wept”, while other tweets say, “Weep not Brazil (WnB)”.

The rebuttal is that “after he wept, He raised Lazarus from the dead. Brazil will arise”.
However, even as Brazil mourns this defeat, it has emboldened Zimbabwe’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi, who said recently that Zimbabwe will bid to host the Fifa World Cup in 2034. He defended his statement in parliament yesterday.

If all goes according to plan, Zimbabweans should be prepared for the fate that befell Brazil, unless miracles happen in the zifa camp to transform the Warriors into a world class team.

The Jesus’ like image has also been digitally altered with the top part of the statue made to look like German Chancellor Angela Merkel celebrating the big win, donning her familiar jackets.

Others are saying from now, Brazil should be written thus: Brazi7.
One does not need to be super intelligent to understand that this goes to show that soccer is indeed a people’s game and information and communication technologies are playing a major role in bringing soccer lovers together irrespective of distance and time.

It is also giving millions, not just players and fifa officials, opportunities to conduct business and make lots of money.
The unity of purpose that enables millions to communicate with each other is an important ingredient for world peace, if other ingredients are added to make it sustainable after the final match. The world should not wait another four years before people can embrace each other.

At the time of going to press, there were no reports of terrorists attacking and killing soccer fans in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda as they watched the match. By carrying out such attacks in the past, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab demonstrated that they were enemies of what the majority derives fun and happiness from.

But, it is also important to ask whether the 7-1 loss has given the anti-World Cup protesters in Brazil the reason to say: “We told you!”