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"FacebookPinterest\n\nWell that was something. Germany isn't this good, and Brazil isn't this bad. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. But on this day (July 8), in this city (Belo Horizonte), everything was coming up umlauts. By some unpredictable and unexplainable assemblage of cosmic events, the world was treated to one of the greatest beatdowns in the history of sports. That's not hyperbole. That's what this was: history, a remarkable ass-whupping of the kind you rarely see between two allegedly great teams playing for high stakes. Germany beating Brazil 7-1 in some meaningless off-year friendly, in which the Sele\u00E7\u00E3o fields a B-team and plays in Havaianas, would still be shocking; for it to happen in the semifinals of the World Cup \u2014 in Brazil! \u2014 is almost incomprehensible.\n\nBrazil had shown surprising weakness in the tournament, and a decided lack of the increasingly mythical jogo bonito, but it had also squeaked past two excellent opponents in the knockout rounds \u2014 first Chile, in penalty kicks, and then Colombia, in a soccer game that often looked like a bar fight. Prior to yesterday, Brazil hadn't lost a match at home since 1975 and hadn't given up more than five goals in an entire World Cup tournament since 1998. Many people picked Germany to win this semifinal between two pre-tournament favorites, but there was absolutely no indication that this would be anything but a competitive match. Then the whistle blew and the whole world went topsy-turvy.\n\n If it had been a close game, you could perhaps make a case that the absence of Neymar and Thiago Silva was the difference, but what happened yesterday afternoon was such a complete and utter domination of one team over another that it hardly mattered who played for Brazil. The first goal, which came on a defensive lapse that left Germany's most dangerous attacker, Thomas M\u00FCller, wide open for a tap-in goal should have been a tip-off to what was to come. But even if a plane had flown over the arena towing a sign that read, \"That was a portent of bad things to come!\" I'd never have imagined the bad things could possibly be as bad as they turned out to be. Germany scored four more goals over six minutes in the process of building a 5-0 lead by the 30th minute that left announcers Ian Darke and Steve McManaman literally fumbling for new ways to describe how terrible Brazil's performance was.\n\n Gone is the dream of a sixth World Cup title and a first on home turf. Gone is the dream of an Argentina-Brazil final. Gone is the mystique of a Brazil team that everyone expects to be great and also beautiful to watch. Instead, there is only sadness, plus hundreds photos and screen captures of distraught Brazilians that will forever be immortalized on Tumblrs.\n\n Oh, there's also Germany, which is obviously now the team to beat at the 2014 World Cup. Argentina has possibly lost two of its best scorers in Sergio \"Kun\" Ag\u00FCero and \u00C1ngel Di Mar\u00EDa, while Holland is Holland, a talented team that can never quite get over the hump. The only potentially great story left in Brazil now, after yesterday's debacle, is Lionel Messi. Can the world's best player exorcise his national-team demons and put Argentina on his back, winning a World Cup title on his home continent? Could that sentence have contained more overwrought sportswriting clich\u00E9s? In both cases, the magic eight ball says \"probably not.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/brazil-germany-world-cup>