RIO DE JANEIRO — Imagine the battering the Canadian psyche would have taken if its hockey team had opened the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver with 0-0 ties against Kazakhstan and Austria after getting whacked, say 11-1, by Russia two years earlier at a World Cup that had been played in Canada.
Brazil is suffering that “pesadelo” or nightmare this week after two scoreless draws against soccer minnows Iraq and South Africa. Those results followed a 7-1 drubbing at home against Germany in the 2012 World Cup in Rio that is still worn today as a national disgrace and humiliation.
Brazil has high hopes in judo, volleyball and basketball at Latin America’s first Olympics. But it is soccer that is often described as as the country’s true religion. It was that way even before Pele emerged from poverty more than half a century ago to give his unique gifts to “the beautiful game”
To say that Brazilians have been livid about their Olympic team’s performance is to grossly understate the national mood.
“Absolute zeroes. You are the shame of the Games,” Rio’s biggest newspaper, O Globo, screamed in a front-page headline. Another newspaper published a report card after the debacle against Iraq that gave every Brazilian player a failing grade.
In a country that remains proudly chauvinistic, the Brazilian team was jeered off the field Sunday night in Brasilia to taunts of “Marta.” That is the nickname of the best player on the women’s soccer team, which has been breezing through its Olympic tournament so far.
The crowds that packed the bars along Rio’s Copacabana Beach after the Iraq match were equally sour. After the final whistle, which closely followed many Brazilian near-misses for goals, they spilled on to the waterfront promenade screaming in anger and literally giving their team the thumb’s down after what television commentators had declared was the worst performance by a Brazilian Olympic team in 40 years.
“’Futebol’ is more important than life,” said Bernardo Nudel, only slightly overstating the country’s passion for the game. “This team is our future and they are a disaster.”
“The whole country was watching and they have lost faith,” said Carlos Ramos, shaking his head. “They are 11 wonderful players individually, but they do not understand how to be wonderful together.”
Brazil faces elimination in the northern city of Salvador on Wednesday if it does not beat Denmark, which should be the toughest opponent by far that it plays in the first round of the Olympic tournament.
Much of the blame has fallen on Neymar. Only 24, the striker is a global superstar for FC Barcelona, which pays him close to US$28 million a year. It has been widely noted in the media and on the streets here that Neymar makes about 20 times more than the entire Iraqi Olympic team. Yet Neymar and the young multi-millionaires who play with him have not managed to produce a single goal.
The lads in the dazzling yellow jerseys have won an unprecedented five World Cups. But the last of them was 14 years ago in Japan and no more are in prospect any time soon.
A good result at the Rio Olympics would have been a great tonic for the tens of millions of impoverished Brazilians whose only inspiration and hope is often soccer — and for the entire country, which is reeling from the worst economic crisis since the Depression and from daily revelations about a billion dollar political corruption scandal.
“Football does not solve our problems, but if he win at football many Brazilians believe that our problems are solved,” said Rafael Castro. “The country is frustrated. We count on football for so much. We really are ashamed right now.”