Rio Olympics: Brazil crush Honduras 6-0 to reach final

RIO DE JANEIRO: Neymar was bringing back the smiles for Brazil once again. And he was doing it in the most Brazilian way possible - feints, flicks and their long-forgotten flamboyance.
It was finally happening. Finally, Brazil and Maracana were getting together again. And how one was enjoying the other’s company, basking in the sunniness each one radiated – Brazil resplendent in their traditional bright yellow and the Maracana’s famous circle of afternoon light lingering over the playing turf as the packed stands cried itself hoarse in happy delirium.
It was like they had never left each other’s sides.Yet, the reality had been so different. A long-standing yet difficult relationship between the national team and an iconic venue had been in the dumps. Who was betraying whom, it wasn’t clear. They had avoided each other for so long – a break-up that reached its nadir at the World Cup here two years ago, when Dunga’s team never got to Rio to play any of their games. As Brazil readied to throw the sporting after-party to the world, close on the heels of the football World Cup, it had the seemed that this unlikely frostiness would stretch into the Olympics too, till the god of scheduling deemed otherwise.
On Wednesday, everything was coming together. Only poor Honduras, Brazil’s semifinal opponents on the day here, couldn’t understand what was happening, and why was it happening to them.
By the time they had only begun warming up, Neymar had already scored past them. Gone in fifteen seconds. By the time the first half-hour was out, Neymar had scored once and nonchalantly set up Jesus Gabriel twice for a 3-0 rout. If more was to come, and it certainly looked like there as more, one could be forgiven for completely being oblivious to the Hondurans’ plight.
A mere five minutes into resumption and Marquinhos was making it 4-0 off a Neymar corner. At the hour, Neymar powered a 30-yard freekick which Honduras goalkeeper Luis Lopez only just about scrambled to keep out. More was to come. It did. Just under quarter of an hour left, Gabriel played substitute Felipe Anderson on the right. It was seamless movement, one move flowing out of the other, into another. Anderson relayed it to Luan at the far past who made it 5-0. An injury time penalty made it a Steffi Graf-like scoreline in her 1980s heyday.
Tuesday had not panned out well for Brazil. Their men and women won their beach-volleyball matches, but it would never match the downside of losing two big-ticket games in the space of a few hours. First Marta and her team failed to put things past a resolute Sweden in the women’s football semifinals, bowing out in the penalty shootout. If you thought that was bad enough, later in the evening, Brazil’s volleyball women – a most stunning ensemble of sportswomen on one court ever – were upset by a rallying Chinese team that sent a whole city in gloom. Tears flowed freely, not just the Sheilla and Co, but on TV, in the bars and in the neighbourhood.
A new day, and how Neymar and the men in yellow were changing a nation’s mood. The throbbing, chanting Maracana was proof enough.
Brazil’s quest to win an Olympic football gold has been an albatross, just as has been, the inability to win the World Cup at home. In 2014, the humiliation of the London Olympics final where they lost after taking the lead, was amplified in the 7-1 semifinal humiliation that Germany inflicted upon them. Somewhere on Wednesday, even as the Maracana faithful jumped and sang, part of their minds was already tuned on to the other semifinal to follow between Nigeria and Germany.
Both familiar foes – one at the Olympics and other, a World Cup haunt. Who would you pick? Or would you just shut out the future for now, and simply enjoy the here and now? Surely, Honduras would have a different take on the here and now, but who was asking them.