Postcard from Lisboa: The World Cup Wrecks Brazil. A futebol game was also lost (Germany vs Brazil 2014 World Cup)

The Brazilian seleção collapsed in the World Cup under the weight of a nation's insuperable expectation. Drubbed by Germany 7-1, the semi-final game was the coup de grace for the host South American country, providing a perfect footnote to the end of the global economic, political, media and marketing circus that has been the 2014 Mundial. After everything Brazilians have been put through by the big money players and urban planners as a result of this World Cup, what a way to go out, in the 61st game of the final phase with all of those goals rolling in one after the other. Although in the team's defense, I think Brazil still would have made it more of a game if either star player Neymar had not been out after being injured with a broken back or if captain Thiago SIlva had not been suspended for the game. Between the pressure, the lack of personnel and unfortunately catching a semi-flawed and inconsistent German team when they were absolutely clicking, it was all too much for Brazil to overcome.

With many Brazilian migrants in Portugal and Portugal's own unique relationship to Brazil, it is always fun to watch Brazil's international games as they are watched in Lisbon. I saw the semi-final on an esplanada patio among a bar crowd that was pretty mixed between Germans, Brazilians, and Portuguese with a few international tourists mixed in. The mood on the esplanada was surprisingly subdued before the kick off, although a woman dressed in an old Brazilian national team jersey, with a Brazilian flag painted across her face wandered around nervously, spitting into a yellow bra-vuvuzela from time to time as various cohorts of Bavarian tourists searching for scarce seats had to be politely ushered away from standing in between the tv screen and the other spectators.

Brazil came to play, didn't they? and then like that, German goal one, two, goal number three, and after the fourth German goal went into the net, the Brazilian flag painted woman holding the vuvuzela burst from a crowd of yellow shirts inside the bar and ran out the door to the patio. In an unhinged outburst of weeping yawps, she threw her mostly full pint glass of beer across the street and scrambled teary-eyed away from the bar towards the Cais do Sodré praça—an adrenaline rushed flight from the scene of the mauling. All of us watching, independent of our rooting interest, were left looking at each other much like the Brazilian players on the field—still trying to figure out what was going on long after it had already happened.

As the initial shock of the goals wore off, a table of sarcastic Brazilian fans behind mine broke into an a capella version of the 1939 Ary Barroso classic, Aquarela do Brazil, sung with a rapturous mock zeal....

Brah--ZiiiiiiLL, Brah-Ziiiiiiil, Brah--ZiiiiiiLL, Brah-Ziiiiiiil.....

ba da da da-da da da da daaaaaaaaah

I joined them on a later chorus. Between hangman's humor and crying pathos, it was a fine public communal catharsis, helpful for any fan of the World Cup who has been pained by all of the problems attendant in putting on a large scale global event of this kind. The tournament was anticipated with great excitement, but Brazil has not been celebrating with characteristic enthusiasm, as the country's hosting of the Copa has revealed unapologetic corruption at the top-levels of FIFA management (what's new?), gross governmental financial waste, and human rights abuses as a result of displacements and deaths of workers during stadium and infrastructural construction. Here, in soccer-mad Portugal, there just wasn't a lot of feelink as they say in Cape Verdean criolo, for the Mundial this year, and that was even before Portugal lost their first game 4-0, an earlier multi-goal victim of Die Mannschaft.

But as long as the Brazilian team was still in the tournament it has been easier to avoid directly confronting the turmoil in Brazil as a result of political and economic controversies. How does anyone enjoy the games when the Copa is responsible for so many social and economic problems—in which all spectators are more or less complicit just through our attention to the spectacle. And make no mistake, enjoying the games less than we usually do is only a strategy to assuage the conscience, it is not a solution to issues of gross international malfeasance and abuses of power. When presenting proposals to host the games, organizers try to sell the idea by claiming that the events will help to make infrastructural improvements and boost local economies. In reality, the outcome finds that infrastructure designed for the temporary increase of mass tourism ends up destroying or transforming poorer neighborhoods, out-pricing former residents and increasing the displacement of marginalized populations. For the money people, this is one of the features, as it accelerates gentrification, making profitable real estate development and speculation—at the expense of local residents. Further, the financial and time pressures on construction projects always exploit workers and lead to poor worker safety. This is as true for a World Cup as it is an Olympics, or a World Exposition. How the fiasco in Brazil will effect preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where scores of migrant workers have already died in reprehensible working conditions, remains to be seen. And as Brazil continues to prepare for the upcoming Olympic games, these problems will only multiply.

On the patio in Lisbon, we watched the game continue to turn against Brazil. By the time the Brazilian woman who had earlier fled the bar crying had calmed down enough to return, Germany's Sami Khedira had already scored the fifth goal. Meeting her at the doorway, a friend opened his arms for a consoling hug. Peeking over his shoulder up at the game, she realized that yet another goal had been scored and yanked herself away from his arms, running back out onto the esplanada. Her grief was more subdued than earlier however, and this time she just stood there next to the massive TV, staring at the screen in front of the crowd, as we watched her quietly sobbing.

While the tears fell, the Brazilian table behind us returned to singing their gleeful mock chorus of Aquarela again. This time most of the people on the patio joined in too.

Brah--ZiiiiiiLL, Brah-Ziiiiiiil, Brah--ZiiiiiiLL, Brah-Ziiiiiiil.....

ba da da da-da da da da daaaaaaaaah

Let's all keep on singing until the Rio Olympics in 2016, when we do it all over again.