2014 FIFA World Cup™ Semi-Finals: Germany vs Brazil| Tuesday, Jul 8, 3:00 PM

Yes but bunkering wasn't necessary, just having a good defensive organisation. And of course it would help not wasting so much of your nervous energy on the national anthem and the 'soul of Neymar'.

 

I think that as well. To do that they needed tactical awareness and proper positioning. Instead players were going too far forward, not getting back quickly and so on. The absence of Silva clearly hurt. The large amount of space was too easy for Germany to take advantage of.

The poor marking on the first goal seemed to just start a downhill effect after that. The lack of discipline combined with such an aggressive strategy was devastating.

 

Marcelo was pushing that high up the field by design, you can see him actually marking past the midfield line on that first play that led to the corner, not just walking and then being out of place for not running back, he was marking up top (defensive stance)

David Luiz heat map is actually not that bad, he did go forward a lot and those are the plays which are remembered, but his heat map? he was playing behind Dante according to it.
http://resources.fifa.com/mm/docume...2/40/20/22/61_0708_bra-ger_playersheatmap.pdf
They you compare Hoewedes and Boateng, they were pushing up even more according to the heat map.

There's no other option but to move on, the mistakes made can be analyzed (and there were many) but to think for example BRazil is going to go up against the Dutch and get scored on 5 times, that's insane.

 

I don't understand what you're trying to say about Marcelo. Before the first goal he lost the ball at the German penalty box and the Germans could happily and easily play the ball forward on his side. The entire left flank was totally abandoned. This happened numerous times in the first 30 minutes and after. As far as the German attack was concerned Marcelo was the gift that kept on giving.

I still believe you're downplaying this defeat too much. No team loses a World Cup semifinal on their own ground 7-1. This never happened and for a reason - even when teams have bad days or periods in a game they struggle in they still don't concede 5 goals in 18 minutes. There is a deeper problem here that the Germans exposed. Additionally this match has caused massive damage to the Brazil brand (Nike would be crazy to create any Brazil airport commercials for the foreseeable future). Brazil need to go back to the drawing board and see what they can learn here and stop living in the past and think they know everything better because they have five stars.
On another note it would have greatly helped to use modern methods to help the team with the pressure they were under. Screaming the national anthem, whipping up the crowds and running around the pitch like men possessed are the worst methods how to deal with nervous energy.

 

I wonder how far reaching the changes will be in this squad come next friendly. A revolution is imminent.

 

It's like that David Luiz thing, you saw him go up to offense probably 5 times in 90 minutes then all of the sudden, he's always out of position. You saw Khedira and Kroos in a couple of plays there, and is thinking that they were there the whole first half, which is not true. Their heat map indicates otherwise.

Yes you see pressing as a team that does it once and because it works they've been doing it all game, I see pressing as something that well all teams do from time to time and 80% of the time it doesn't work, or teams would forever press opponents.

Yes and Yes... Brazil came out in the first half and looked dominating until Germany scored their first goal. Are you sure you watched the game? At this point it just looks like you are looking at the 7 x 1 scoreline and saying.. there's no way the other team could have done anything before this! Which is not true, Brazil came out of the gate with their "blitz" and held possession and created more than the germans, until the goal.

what you're doing is the same as describing shooting as the ball always going towards goal and away from the goalkeeper... No pressing can be done in many different ways, and if a team is failing at pressing because both of their DMs are not pushing up enough (Brazil's case) it might look uncoordinated, it is still pressing.

You need to re-watch the game, Khedira wasn't pressing, Brazil lost possession in the German half almost every time or with their regular long ball play that they've been doing since the Confederate Cup.

You're talking out of your ass completely you're looking at the scoreline saying whatever you want and then going.. the scoreline was 7 x 1 it's obvious this was happening...
Neur didn't touch the ball because Germany dominated Brazil, just look at the scoreline
Brazil could't string together passes against Germany, just look at the scoreline
Germany pressed the whole game, look at the steal they had on Brazil's half that cause a goal and the scoreline

That analysis is good for ESPN, not for here.

Because on ESPN somebody watching won't turn around and call them out.. hey excuse me.. that's the only ball stolen on Brazil's half the whole game, how is it that they kept their line high again?

 

Because you're forgetting what's his tactical role on this game was. Marcelo during the whole WC had space in behind him, and every time people tried to take advantage of that space T.Silva would have an easy ball to cover or intercept. That's done by design, Marcelo's strength is his ability to go forward, why would a coach tell him to stay put in the back?

If you tell a player to do something, you can't come back later and blame said player for not backing up and defending. Look at the difference between our LB and RB.. Alves and Marcelo had similar roles, offensive first backs.

Both left tons of space behind them to be covered by D.Luiz and T.Silva

Alves when in defensive position was beaten by the attacking player and as an attacking player was horrible
Marcelo when in defensive position wasn't being beaten and was attacking well on his side.

They changed Alves, not Marcelo, because tactically it was ok for the space, but not ok to be beaten when you were defending.

It's not downplaying, it is what it is, it was a 7 x 1 defeat, but people are putting too much emphasis on the players on the pitch as if every one of them played a horrible game, which is far from the truth, it was a bad tactical deployment by Felipao on the first half, with some questionable players being in there, when he switched Brazil overloaded the midfield to deal with the German midfield and caused trouble, problem is at that point they had 5 goals to go back to, so they pushed forward massively.

Brazil's past is just around the corner, you guys are talking like it's been 18 years since we won anything... It hasn't actually both teams on the final haven't won anything since 1993 and 1996.. Is Argentina living in the past? is Germany? because whatever team loses they will have accomplished what compared to Brazil? nothing.

Also the problem Brazil has to me was more exposed 2 years ago at the Olympics and 4 years ago with Dunga then now. What will happen now will be the same response that it always happens when we lose a tournament. We fire the coach and change all of the players. Next World Cup we'll come in, be once again Favorites to win it and have a different coach with different players and rely only on talent since no coach or player in Brazil is allowed to fail and then give continuity to their job.

That's a great way to play after the fact psychologist. While a real psychologist was accompanying the team with real modern methods because of the pressure they were under, and go ask any real psychologist releasing emotions is the best way to deal with stress and pressure.

Sorry that part they did it right, it has nothing to do with the 7 x 1... They weren't lost in the pitch because of nervous energy, they did the same in the Confed Cup and everyone was saying how pumped up they were, and how much that fed into their energy...

So no... playing after the fact psychology doesn't really fly.

 

Revolution would be keeping the same coach and the same players. That' would be a revolution. Take a look at the last losing squads in the WC for Brazil, we change the coach + all of our players.

That's the norm, regardless of the scoreline.

 

Good post but you're mistaken about the psychological aspect. For the entire tournament doctors and psychologists in the European media have been saying the same thing - that their behaviour before the match is completely detrimental to their success. Not handling nervous energy properly can use up as much as 50% of your energy before the match.
Look at it this way - if a racehorse is not calm and collected before a race then it will not win. You never see Roger Federer or Nadal or Djokovic or Tiger Woods or Michael Phelps or a sprinter or ANY properly prepared athlete behave right before a competition the way the Brazilian team did. And this is part of the problem - Brazil believed that science is not important and that superstitious elements like the 'soul of a nation' or the 'spirit of Neymar' will make them win.

 

Worked during the Confederations Cup like a Charm, and even in the newspapers in Europe they were saying how the energy they were getting from the crowd and the national anthem singing would make it almost impossible to beat Brazil at home.

Once Brazil started to play bad, then people started to look for excuses, the psychological one is always the easiest route to go. Look at football players then, they come in and are yelling at each other before the game, they are jumping around letting all that energy go. The Hakka? that's the ultimate show of energy and emotion, the more emotional the better...

This is where you start making the same mistake a lot are making, they are looking at results and then saying whatever they want because it fits the context.

Reality is that Regina Brandao, a sports psychologist since 1989, that has worked on the field of football since 1995, accompanied our selecao in 1998, 2002 and then the Portuguese team in 2004 and 2006 while in between working for various teams and having over 1000+ patients which are all football players has been with this team since the Confederations Cup.

And if you talk to anybody on that field, first thing they'll say is, when you see a psychologist on TV talking about the psychiatric state of somebody they have not consulted with, they are talking out of their asses because the producer asked them to.

 

Mineracao. If that's the case then I feel sorry for him and Im willing to give him three to six months to recover. Let's hope his current state of mind is only temporary.

 

And you guys are still looking straight at the 7 x 1 and forgetting about everything that happened in the game as it doesn't matter.. that's the problem with having an even head, shit doesn't phase you, you don't over react.

With this information in mind.
1- Germany always plays a high line, they have gotten burned over and over with it, hence Neur being upset at the end with the goal conceded.
2- Brazil always punts the ball to their sidelines for Neymar or Hulk, they have done it for 2 years.

Then people look at the result of the game and say... Germany was pressing, look at how high their defenders were, that's why Brazil was punting the ball up the pitch.

That to me sounds like somebody that's not informed.

Then this one!
Pressing is only pressing when it's done correctly, when you fail at doing something it means you didn't do it! Holy shit can that be farther away from the truth?

 

Guigs, that game was what it was. No point in trying to analyze or remember things other than the result. Guess what will be the only thing remembered 20 years from now?
I would rather spend time analyzing future coaches, players or whatever you want. But this match is better left alone.

 

While everyone in Brazil is hitting the reset button, and claiming how horrible this team is, I'm actually doing the sane thing.. I'm doing what the Germans did in 2000 and 2004.. saying guys look it's not that bad we have to keep working on it and we don't need to get rid of all of our players and start over..

If Germany was Brazil back in 2000.. Ballack would never walk back into the pitch for Germany
If Germany was Brazil back in 2004... Lahm, Ballack again, Schweinsteiger, Podolski, Klose would have never had another shot.

Keeping an even head and not blaming players and coaches, and looking for progress is the right thing to do, you can't win every tournament every time. That's the Brazilian way, if we don't we explode.

Would you believe that the reaction to this loss in Brazil has been better than the reaction to a 2 x 1 loss in 2010? Because it has!
Would you believe that the reaction from the FA in this loss is the same as the reaction from 2010?
Because it is!!

That needs to change, keeping an even head and looking past the scorelines and mistakes has to be done, look at the best you can take out of and a lesson and move on. We have the Dutch to play against today, and guess what.. they have finally changed the line-up to a more passing dominant lineup that doesn't rely on longballs.. Felipao moved on, but Brazil will move on from him.

EDIT: By the way just a reminder, Germany also played in 2006-2008-2010-2012... tournaments all lost with the same core of players.. In Brazil that core would have been broken up a LONG time ago.

 

Analyzing future players and coaches is what Brazil does after every tournament loss, which is why we can't progress and only win based on talent.

You sure you don't work for CBF?

 

Brazil wouldn´t have gotten out of group stage if I had any say in it.

 

So you work for Spain! OMG!

 

In globo.com... Biggest Brazilian news channel

Selecao chega cabisbaixa no Mane - Selecao gets to the stadium looking down.

if they were coming into the finals the headline would be...
Selecao chega concentrada - Selecao comes into the stadium concentrated on the match

This is my objection to talking about any kind of psychology of players, both instances the players came in and didn't talk to anybody, one is viewed as concentration the other as looking down, because of previous match results.

 

Question: does anyone read all of this?

 

Not even your question.

 

No we participate on the forum to not read

 

I have just rewatched the first half of that game and Khedira and Klose where pressing the central defenders quite a bit. Kroos and Schweinsteiger where pressing the defensive midfielders, even Özil was constantly pressing Maicon (with not much success).
I really don't know, why you think Germany pressing is such a debatable point really.