Why Brazil Lost To Holland.

Brazilian Pele, the greatest football player ever, aside from the pretenders like Diego Maradona, called the game of football, "Jogo e' Bonito", that is to say, " The Beautiful Game". To the religious followers of Brazil, that is what the Samba Boys should play. It is well only when they win.

Dutch footballer, arguably their most popular son of the game, Rudd Gullit told us of "Sexy Football". Judging by what happened yesterday, Sexy Football rules. Brazil had moments of fulfillment of the beautiful game in the first half, and it was all we were going to see until 2014.

Tactically, Brazil lost their defensive shape. They came out trying to contain Arjen Robin and Wesley Sneijder. They tried to hunt the pair down. Dunga showed that he was a good captain like Maradona. They are both not coaches. He forgot Brazil are the real deal. The mountain. The mountain don't move.

Brazil usually defended as a tightly knit unit outside the 'D' of the penalty area, imposing a suffocating curfew. They made it a point to keep compactness staying 3-4 metres apart. This made them water tight. In their quarter-final encounter, they moved further up field. More spaces opened up, the distances between defenders increased. Whatever they were hunting for up field was slippery for them to catch. They actually lost shape for nothing.

The Dutch, for their part, did Brazil a lot of favours really. They did not trouble Brazil for their stupidity. They rarely probed hard and persistently enough in the penalty box. Goalkeeper, Julio Cesar, was not busy at all. I can not remember a save he made. The Dutch kept on the periphery, shooting from a distance and set-pieces, form where they scored.

The Samba Boys did not win balls in midfield. As a consolidation to the point above, personnel moved out of position in pursuit of swift and talented touch me not midfielders. As soon as the Dutch midfield attacked the Brazilians, the South Americans were in sixes and sevens. They started to concede a lot of free-kicks as a result, and boy were they so bad defending these, all watching the ball and not the man coming from the blind side.

Frustration of not getting to the ball first was even more evident when Fillipe Melo was sent off. That is the Brazilian way. They can not deal with situations they have no control over. They are only disciplined as long as it is their way. Their frustration ensured the Dutch sweated less for the victory. 

Brazil strayed lots of passes in midfield and attack. Fabiano and Robinho had hardly any clean passes. Whenever passes and movement were good, the Dutch did a good job to kill the moves.

Holland.

Holland were a lucky pack and they worked for that. They threw everything in attack especially in the second half. They remained composed under pressure, when Jogo e' Bonito was in town. After weathering the storm, they probed without ceasing.

The Dutch utilised half chances that came their way, because the scored goals were never clear-cut chances. They were so efficient, scoring decisive goals at crucial times.

Robin and Sneijder were the difference. They ran their socks off and fought for every ball. The more the Brazilians were frustrated, the happier became the two. The goalkeeper needs to be mentioned in denying Kaka a possible goal. Holland delivered their balls from a distance, by-passing the effective central defence wall, which had actually collapsed.

At the end of the day, Sexy Football was more seductive than The Beautiful Game.