On Soccer
For Bellicose Brazil, Payback Carries Heavy Price: Loss of Neymar
By SAM BORDEN
The referee’s failure to control Friday’s game between Brazil and
Colombia contributed to an ugly atmosphere and a World Cup-ending injury
to Brazil’s star striker.
RIO
DE JANEIRO — A Colombian defender named Juan Camilo Zúñiga ended the
World Cup for the Brazilian star striker Neymar on Friday with a nasty
knee into Neymar’s back that fractured one of his vertebrae. It was an
ugly play and a bad foul. It deserved, at least, a yellow card.
Yet
within any game, there is always a road map to every flash point. The
beauty of soccer’s continuous flow is that one thing leads to another
(and another and another), and that makes it possible to trace a path to
a game’s most memorable moment. In a game like Friday’s, doing so makes
it easier to see where things went wrong.
So
what happened to Neymar? How did the face of this tournament end up in a
hospital? Brazilian fans will not like to hear it, but while Zúñiga was
directly responsible for causing Neymar’s injury, Neymar’s teammates —
specifically Fernandinho, though there were others — as well as the
referee, Carlos Velasco Carballo, deserve their share of the blame, too.
They did not commit the crime, but they contributed to an environment
of lawlessness that led to Neymar’s being battered.
If
that sounds harsh, consider that Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari,
made a point of saying before the game that there was no historical
rivalry between Brazil and Colombia and that games between the teams
were “friendly matches.” Thiago Silva, the captain, said that playing
against Colombia’s considerable skill players would make for a cleaner,
more fluid game.
Yet
from the first minute it appeared that Brazil was determined to play
the game cynically, tripping and pushing and kicking at Colombia’s
players, especially James Rodríguez, the team’s wunderkind scorer.
Colombia, on the other hand, seemed almost deferential at first. When
Neymar went off on a spirited run six minutes into the game, the
Colombian defenders did little to try to knock him off stride, let alone
scythe him to the ground as previous opponents had done. He ran freely.
When
Rodríguez went to claim the ball a few minutes later, however, Brazil’s
Óscar ran right into Rodríguez’s back as if to make clear to him that
no space on the Fortaleza field would be a safe space. Rodríguez’s
teammates were understandably upset, but there was no retaliation — the
feeling of violence in the game, especially early on, came almost
exclusively from Brazil.
Two
minutes after Óscar’s foul, Marcelo blasted the Colombian midfielder
Juan Cuadrado. Three minutes after that, Fernandinho, a midfielder who
often plays with an edge, slammed into Rodríguez again. Velasco Carballo
blew his whistle and called a foul but did not show Fernandinho a
yellow card.
This
quickly became a recurrent theme. Soccer referees will often show
yellow cards to players for “persistent infringement” of the rules, a
phrase that generally means committing three or four serious fouls.
Fernandinho was called for four fouls in just the first half of the
game, three of them significant hacks at Rodríguez. But Velasco Carballo
gave him no penalty.
Interactive Graphic
How Much Will Brazil Miss Neymar?
Teams that have relied heavily on one player being
involved in its scoring chances have fared much better than teams that
have shared those opportunities more evenly.
This
was not a new role for Fernandinho. He committed six fouls in Brazil’s
previous game (two more than the number of passes he completed), a
difficult victory over Chile in a shootout. Of course, as Scolari noted,
that game was between heated rivals. Colombia and Brazil were supposed
to be more copacetic.
Despite
that, the temperature of the game continued to rise in the second half,
and again, it was Brazil doing most of the stoking. David Luiz
blatantly tripped Cuadrado in the first minute after intermission
(Velasco Carballo missed it). Fernandinho slyly pushed Adrián Ramos into
the sign boards behind the end line as the two chased a ball that was
undoubtedly going out of play anyway.
In
all, Brazil committed nine of the first 11 fouls in the second half,
hacking and pounding on the Colombians despite already holding a 1-0
lead. It was not hard to predict that at some point, Brazil’s top star,
Neymar, would become a target.
It
was in the 57th minute, though, when the match began to boil over. The
Colombians had continued to mostly sit back and take the punishment, but
they were clearly infuriated when Silva crushed Ramos from behind as he
went toward a ball. Velasco Carballo, again, declined to whistle a
foul. The Colombians’ ire was raised even more 10 minutes later when the
referee showed a yellow card to Rodríguez — who was apoplectic at the
decision — for an innocuous trip that was, as Rodríguez vociferously
pointed out with multiple hand gestures, a first offense compared with
Fernandinho’s harrying.
“I think the referee influenced the game a lot,” Rodríguez said afterward.
He
was being kind. Velasco Carballo’s role in the ugliness cannot be
minimized. A Spaniard, he is known as a high-level official, but it
seemed clear that he was determined to avoid using cards to control the
players. That decision backfired, particularly as it related to
Fernandinho; instead of giving the players a comfort level to play more
freely early on, his lenience served as an elastic band on the game,
encouraging the players, especially the Brazilians, to try to see just
how much contact they could get away with on Rodríguez without being
punished.
It
was a poor miscalculation from Velasco Carballo, and one he compounded
by neglecting to adjust as the game progressed. His culpability is
impossible to ignore.
Yet
neither is that of the Brazilians who, emboldened, continued to chop.
The Colombians took a few shots in return, though nothing compared with,
say, Chile or earlier Brazil opponents, who clearly had a plan to
harass Neymar. By the time the game reached its closing moments, the
Colombians — who saw Brazil commit 31 of the tournament-high 54 fouls in
the game — surely felt they were owed the proverbial pound of flesh.
They
got it, then, with Zúñiga’s challenge on Neymar, though it is hard to
believe Zúñiga was looking to cause the sort of damage he inflicted.
Taking a whack at an attacking player who is awaiting a bouncing or
floating ball is standard fare: Rodríguez was hit high, low and in
between multiple times on Friday. In the 87th minute, the ball came
near, Zúñiga put his knee into Neymar’s back and Neymar crumpled, his
World Cup suddenly over.
It
was unfortunate and sad, and afterward, Scolari and other Brazilian
officials were incensed. Much of their frustration was directed at
Zúñiga, with the rest being sent toward the referee.
“Everybody
knew that Neymar would be hunted,” Scolari said. “It’s been happening
in the last three matches, and we had been talking about it. But nobody
listens to us.”
Those
emotions were understandable. But if Scolari was truly being honest
with himself, he must look inward, too. Brazil has not showcased jogo
bonito here, has not displayed the “beautiful game” that it is known for
playing. It has played ugly and rugged and rough.
That
is Scolari’s choice. And on Friday it was Scolari’s players — Neymar’s
teammates — who created the environment that ultimately sent Brazil’s
superstar home.
copy http://www.nytimes.com/
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário