BRAZIL QUALIFIES TO QUARTER FINALS WITH CHILES'S DEFEAT
Posted by FactNews Admin | 10 years ago | 2,684 times
It was victory for Brazil as they beat Chile in a penality shoot out to qualify to quarter finals.
Ninety minutes of the match ended goalless which extended to extra time. As the extra time yielded no fruit of any goal, a penality shoot out was take.
It was an epic contest and, when it was all done, the final explosion of joy and bedlam told us Brazil had made it to the quarter-finals and the World Cup would not have to go on without its hosts. Chile had given everything but, ultimately, it all came back to that moment, at 2-2 in the penalty shootout, with one player left on each team. Neymar, superstar, kissed the ball, shuffled his feet and put his shot in the corner. Gonzalo Jara hit the post and Brazil, finally, could breathe.
They had made it difficult for themselves after taking the lead courtesy of Jara’s own goal, which was credited to David Luiz, in the first half and the referee, Howard Webb, might have needed a wig to leave the country if Chile had been more accurate from 12 yards. Webb, from a poor vantage point, denied Brazil an early penalty when Hulk went down under Mauricio Isla’s challenge and, more controversially, disallowed a second-half goal from the same player. It was not a controversy that would have stayed with him like the 2010 final. There would, nonetheless, have been significant fallout if Brazil had gone on to lose.
Instead, Júlio César saved Chile’s first two penalties, from the substitute Mauricio Pinilla and Alexis Sánchez, scorer of their goal. David Luiz went first for Brazil but Willian put the next one wide and the Chile goalkeeper, Claudio Bravo, kept out Hulk after Marcelo had scored with their third attempt. Fortunately for Brazil, Neymar has played throughout this entire tournament as if immune to the considerable pressures on his slender shoulders. “He is 22,” Luiz Felipe Scolari, said. “But he plays with the experience you would expect of someone of 35.”
What a moment this was as well for Júlio César bearing in mind it was his mistake that led to Brazil’s elimination in 2010. The goalkeeper had been in tears before the first penalty had been kicked. “I couldn’t hold it in,” he said. “So many of my team-mates came to me to say beautiful things. I just hope next time we don’t need a penalty shootout, for the sake of our families, and not wanting anyone to suffer a heart attack.”
Chile left with dignity and will always reflect on that moment, in the final minute of extra time, when Sánchez played in Pinilla and his shot cannoned back off the crossbar. A touch more composure at that point and Brazil would have been plunged into a grieving process rather than looking forward to a last-eight tie in Fortaleza on Friday.
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