Brazil 1-7 Germany: 1441 days later | OneFootball

A week is an eternity in football, never mind four years.

On Sunday, Brazil and Germany both kick off their respective World Cups exactly 1441 days on from one of the most shocking nights in football’s long and illustrious history.

Hosts Brazil went into the semi-final clash of the 2014 tournament with 204 million Brazilians willing them on towards what would have been a first World Cup triumph for 12 years.

Having lost Neymar, their talisman, to a spinal injury in the previous match against Colombia, the Verde-Amarela knew overcoming a fearsome Germany side was going to be tough ask, but the acapella section of the Hino Nacional Brasileiro was belted out with extra gusto before kick-off in the Estádio Mineirão that night, and it felt like nothing was going to stop them.

But after just 11 minutes, they found themselves 1-0 down to a poorly defended Thomas Müller goal, and little did they know that the nightmare had only just begun.

After 24 minutes it was 2-0, and by half-time it was five. André Schürrle added a sixth and a seventh after the interval to complete a humiliation which a late Oscar consolation somehow only served to compound. In truth, Germany eased off in the second half, and 7-1 probably flattered the shellshocked losers.

“Embarrassment, shame, humiliation,” bellowed the front page of O Globo the morning after the game.

“What we saw at the Mineirão was not a game of football but a genuine massacre,” wrote journalist Renato Maurício Prado and in the same publication, each Brazilian player was awarded zero out of 10 for their performance, along with one word each to sum it all up.

“Júlio César: buried. Maicon: crushed. Dante: lost. David Luiz: confused. Marcelo: aimless. Luiz Gustavo: demolished. Fernandinho: wild. Paulinho: outclassed. Oscar: weak. Hulk: shambolic. Ramires: irrelevant. Bernard: misguided. Fred: tragic. Willian: insipid. Felipão: vanquished.”

There probably aren’t too many of those intervening 1441 days which have passed by without Brazilians being reminded of that soul crushing night in Belo Horizonte and, over time, “the 7-1” (“sete a um”) has almost become a kind of gallows humoured verbal meme in what remains, in spite of everything, a proud footballing nation.

Having a bad day? Set a um. Dropped your car keys down a well? Set a um. Watched your country drift into political and economic turmoil? Set a um.

If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.

But in football, there’s almost always an opportunity for redemption and this summer in Russia, Brazil finally have a chance to exorcise their demons.

A lot has changed since the 2014 World Cup. In the summer of 2016, Dunga was replaced in Brazil’s managerial hot-seat by Tite and a gold medal at the 2016 Olympic games soon followed.

To say Tite has revived the Brazilian game would, at this point, perhaps be a little premature, but the football has been a world away from the insipid fayre served up by his predecessor, and the results haven’t been bad either. In the 57-year-old’s 21 matches in charge, there have been 17 wins, three draws and just a solitary defeat – against Argentina in a friendly.

A much-needed injection of youthful exuberance has certainly helped. Only six members of Dunga’s 23-man squad from the 2014 tournament (Thiago Silva, Fernandinho, Marcelo, Paulinho, Neymar and Willian) will turn out for Brazil in Russia and should they suffer the misfortune of losing Neymar to injury again, the options available to them in reserve are a lot more inspiring than Fred and Jô, that’s for sure.

Brazil are rightly considered one of the favourites to lift this year’s World Cup but if they’re to do so, you suspect they’re going to have to go through Germany at some point.

The reigning world champions aren’t in bad shape themselves, and head into the tournament with arguably at least two world-class players to choose from in every department.

Last summer’s Confederations Cup was won with consummate ease and an “experimental” team, and Joachim Löw has such an embarrassment of riches at his disposal that he was able to cut Leroy Sané from his 23-man World Cup squad without even flinching earlier this month.

Back in March, the two sides met in a friendly in Berlin and at the end of four long years, a 1-0 victory provided Brazil with a tiny shred of cathartic relief.

Although you should never say never in football, it’s highly unlikely the set a um will ever be truly avenged, at least not in our lifetime.

But prising the World Cup from Germany’s steely grip this summer and adding a sixth star to that already crowded constellation above their national crest would at least offer Brazilian football some much-needed closure.