Semi Finals 1: Germany Crushed Barazil by 7-1

Like impostors who begin believing their own lies, the Selecao of 2014 too sauntered into the semifinal against Germany here telling themselves they were a team that stood a chance of getting within touching distance of a sixth World Cup title. They forgot that it would not be Germany -- the world's top ranked team -- but their own sickening ineptitude at this level that would so cruelly expose them.

If it was a carnage, a massacre, an annihilation and all the death-inducing adjectives that the composed and prepared Europeans inflicted on them, it must be pointed out that it was Brazil who had ordered the firing squad themselves and provided for the ammunition. Germany scored seven goals in a single game here. In South Africa, Spain won the World Cup with the just one more -- eight goals. A late Oscar goal brought some late cheer but angry and shocked tears flowed freely at the Estadio Minerao.

In Belo Horizonte on Tuesday, Ronaldo just lost his goal-scoring record to Miroslav Klose, but Brazil lost more than a football match. It lost face, which recovering would take a good half-century or more. Until the next Maracanazo would come along, the Minerazo would stand, for unfortunately this Brazil side under the sweet-talking, ever-sure Luis Felipe Scolari - who had claimed that he had not even a drop of doubt for this defence of his - could not hold up to even the poorest teams that Brazil had sent out to in previous World Cups, 1974 and 1978. And like the 1950 reverse, the scars of this debacle will take very, very long to heal.

Before this, the most Brazil had allowed at home was five goals, and that was 75 years ago. That was in 1939 when they were beaten 5-0 by Argentina - the rivals the whole nation had desired to meet in the July 13 final at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. Now, Brazil will not make the trip to Maracana, which they had arrogantly kept aside for the final visit. Back in 1939, those were the formative days. Friday's debacle not only showed up the chasm between the two sides, it also showed up the abject difference in class between even this one and other bad Brazil sides of the past.

One is not sure what was more humiliating for the Brazilians - the first-half's 18-minute spell that produced four goals past them or that the Germans pulled their feet off the pedal and decided to spare Scolari's side further agony and score any more, playing at half-speed in the second half. Even then, the abject cluelessness of Brazil's defence forced them to score two more.

It has often been said that the world football had turned a corner with last year's Confederations Cup when Brazil hammered a mentally fatigued Spain side and that it was to set the template for the future, especially the World Cup. Everyone invoked the effect of 2013 to suggest what was in store with a young, hungry Brazil raring to get off the blocks. Scolari arrogantly even announced his squad weeks before the deadline, claiming that he had seen at the Confederations what he had need to see, and now there was no looking back. While it is true that Spain never recovered from their Brazilian experience of 2013, it also showed up that Brazil were never ready. All they had believed had been a mirage.

This was not even about the Neymar effect. The talismanic Brazilian's injury that put him out of the World Cup was milked to the maximum by a squad and his manager who used it well to divert the attention from the real flaws. The theatre for the missing Neymar bordered on the absurd - stand in skipper David Luiz holding aloft a No. 10 jersey just before the National anthem was played. The expelled Thiago Silva still making an appearance during warm-up wearing a Forca Neymar cap - it was as if the semifinal was hijacked by the absence of one man, and his not being there would lift the team to great heights. But that was never going to happen, Neymar had been the jet engine fuel for this side, but without him, that the holes would so glaringly show up could never be imagined.