Remember that time Germany beat Brazil 7-1 in the World Cup semifinals? Yeah, that's history now. Weverton came up with a save in penalties and Neymar scored his penalty (in addition to a monster free-kick earlier in the game) and Brazil became Olympic champions.
We're not sure if anyone out there knew this, but Neymar is really good.
Look at that celebration. Cristiano is clearly Neymar's idol pic.twitter.com/vsnGaLiZdl
Brazil absolutely dominated Sweden during their Olympic semi-final match on Tuesday. The final statistics show that Brazil had 67% of possession and nine shots on goal compared to Sweden’s two. However, Sweden rode their luck to a second consecutive penalty shootout victory following their similar upset of the USWNT.
Sweden does it again!
Brazil have found their best form at the 2016 Summer Olympics men’s football tournament at just the right time. Building off their 4-0 hammering of Denmark and 2-0 quarterfinal victory over Colombia, they’ve put in their most impressive performance yet in a 6-0 drubbing of Honduras.
They now await the winner of the Nigeria vs. Germany match in the other semifinal in Sao Paulo later today.
Brazil couldn’t have asked for a better start in front of 70,000 supporters at the world famous Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
A few weeks ago, the Seattle Sounders hit rock bottom. They were one point from the Western Conference cellar. They were just embarrassed on national television by Sporting Kansas City and had no choice but to fire Sigi Schmid, the only coach they’d ever had in their MLS history.
All of a sudden, one of America’s great soccer cities found itself with a club that was more pretender than championship contender.
Enter Nicolas Lodeiro.
Brazil’s Olympic footballing dream received a massive lift on Saturday. Following the women’s dramatic shootout victory over Australia on Friday, Brazil’s men followed the example of Marta and company to reach the semi-finals of their own competition.
Having struggled through group play with draws against Iraq and South Africa, Neymar and his teammates sprung to life with devastating efficiency against continental rivals Colombia.
Well, that was short-lived. Argentina manager Edgardo Bauza’s trip out to Barcelona has to be deemed a resounding success with the news that Lionel Messi has decided to reverse his decision to retire from international football.
Rather than keep his country in limbo, Messi now appears set to star for Argentina in their September World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela — an outcome that looked impossible at the end of June.
When Brazilian under-23 coach Rogerio Micale suggested that Neymar could one day quit the Brazilian national team due to a lack of respect, the parallels that could be drawn with Lionel Messi’s treatment and subsequent retirement from Argentina’s setup were almost too self-evident.
Newly appointed Argentina boss Edgardo Bauza has arrived in Barcelona in an attempt to bring Lionel Messi back into the international fold. The most important task facing Bauza over the coming months is to entreat the former Argentine captain to reconsider his early retirement.
Neymar and Brazil's men have been so bad in the Olympics that Neymar has reportedly been stripped of the Brazil captainship. Fortunately, Marta and Brazil's women are here to save the day, so much so that fans have started turning Neymar jerseys into Marta jerseys.
With a squad containing the likes of Neymar, Renato Augusto, Gabriel Jesus and Rafinha, it was understandable that a huge home crowd booed their own team off the pitch following a scoreless opening Olympic match against South Africa.
Brazil played the majority of the second half with a man advantage following Mothobi Mvala’s dismissal, but they could not find a way past South Africa despite registering 20 shots with seven of those on target.