The current West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce once drove past Bolton Wanderers’ new Reebok stadium, where he was then manager and shook his head.
“We built a monument when we should have built a stadium,” he said.
Though outspoken, Allardyce hasn’t yet shared his views on Brasilia’s new national stadium. The second most expensive on earth after London’s Wembley Stadium, it sits alongside the modernism of Oscar Niemeyer’s finest works in the Brazilian capital. The roof, like the flying saucer of Niemeyer’s 50s fantasies, is held up by hundreds of concrete pillars. It enhances the capital’s main esplanade, a beautiful, circular structure with 70,000 red seats within.
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Should it have ever been built in a city with no top-flight football team? Probably not, but that barely mattered last night as it witnessed Brazil’s most impressive display of the World Cup so far, a 4-1 victory over Cameroon. The fans danced, they performed Mexican waves and sang about how proud they were to be Brazilian. Their players responded by bowing in unison after a job well done. Victory sent Brazil into the last-16 and a game against an impressive Chile who’d earlier been defeated by the Netherlands.
With the pressure on after two underwhelming performances in their opening matches, Neymar fulfilled the immense Brazilian expectations with two first half goals - his first after 15 minutes an act of beauty as he opened his body and let a cross from run across it before volleying with the side of his foot into the corner of Charles Itandje’s net. Professional footballers will say that’s one of the hardest things to do.
Against all odds, Cameroon, the worst team in the World Cup finals, found a charge lacking in their previous games. Despite missing their star players Alex Song and Samuel Eto’o, despite dressing room disharmony awkwardly displayed when Benoit Assou-Ekotto head-butted teammate Benjamin Moukandjo in their last match, Cameroon passed coherently. They attacked and they scored when Allan Nyom went past Dani Alves and crossed low for Joel Matip, who’d lost his marker David Luiz.
Brazil looked angst ridden and the crowd became nervous before Neymar reasserted his authority and drove his team forward. His coach Luiz Felipe Scolari opined that Neymar’s potential to make a difference was much greater than other players. And so it proved as he got Brazil’s second after 35 minutes, a low shot from the edge of the penalty area.
He gave the crowd some tricks too - more reason for them to love the man who has become their national hero. The Barcelona striker, who cuts a far more assured figure for country rather than club, was substituted after 71 minutes, a wise move by manager Scolari who, with the game won, wanted to let some of his other players bask in the limelight - Fred scored a third after 49 minutes, Fernandinho a fourth six minutes from time.
Neymar is the competition’s leading goalscorer with four and every Brazilian hopes that he’ll add to that total. Much as they’d like to see their team visit again, those in Brasilia’s wonderful national stadium know the only chance of that is in the third/fourth place play-offs. That’s not a game they want to see their country play, Neymar or not.
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