Brazil! Neymar! Brazil!

Day -663. WorldCup2018

Uruguay 1950. Germany 2014. Partial redemption for past football nightmares for Brazil happened today. It wasn't a World Cup but an Olympic win which they really wanted, which they had never achieved before, against an opponent who had humiliated the nation two years ago and it will go some to way to bringing joy back to Brazilian football. And they also have a hero. Neymar, the victim of a terrible injury that kept him out of that semifinal two years ago, was in this team with the pressure of being the player to lead them to victory. And it was fitting that he scored a stunning goal to put Brazil in the lead, and that he scored the winning penalty.

The match itself was at times a breathless display of excitement. A good old end to end battle for parts of it and then a classic all out attack against disciplined German defending for the latter part. But as the pundits would say, and probably did say but I didn’t have time to listen to them because I didn't want to spoil how enjoyable this was to watch, very often the excitement was due to the countless errors. There were phases of the match were neither team could keep hold of the ball for more than two passes. It was pinball, the ball bouncing back and forth between German and Brazilian players. The German goal was a defensive comedy. Brazil lost possession just outside their penalty area when a defender pretty much passed a ball to the Germans, who immediately passed the ball right back to a defender on the edge of the penalty area, who subsequently passed the ball right back to the Germans. At this point the Germans probably thought: "really, we gave you two chances to get out of your half and you couldn't do it. We must punish you now and score." Pass, pass, pass....boom...goal!

The penalties in the shoot-out out were all perfect until one poor German had his saved. Cue the Neymar moment. And what a moment. He must have stepped up to take the penalty knowing that personal, and national, redemption and revenge was in his hands. And cool as a Brazilian footballer in the Maracana, who has 66 years of a Maracana football nightmare resting on his shoulders, he put the penalty confidently away. Cue the tears, from Neyamr, the rest of the team, the coaching team and close to 100,000 jumping, screaming Brazilians in the stands. It was a crazily magic moment, a perfect emotional storm of winning an Olympic goal for your country coupled with laying to rest a few national demons.

For that reason I hope you all took my advice and watched possibly your first Olympic football final. And despite my misgivings at some of the quality, I hoped you also watched it and enjoyed it for one of the most exciting football matches you will have seen for a long time. It made the Euros look like a bona-fide bore-fest. Admittedly that's not saying much. So how about it made me wish that any match from the last 5 or 6 World Cups were played at that same speed, with all the errors.

It was that good. And I still have not read one report about it. I don't want some smart aleck to spoil it for me. I would just like to think that Lawton, Parkinson and McIlvanney appreciated the craziness in the same way I did.