Brazil played like that in all the games, and it was asking for trouble. It wasn't an organised, worked out strategy in the first 10 minutes, it was just go for it, and it took the Germans that long to bring order to it, and then dismantle them.

The Germans didn't have o play out of their skins, they just had to wait for the right openings, because there were that many, with no attempt to shore things up.

The Germans could have scored twice as many if they'd wanted to.

Brazil were simply awful, and were clueless as to how to react when they went behind.

Indeed but it was the first time it happened to them in the tournament, which tells us they were playing a different calibre of opponent. In every other game, they were level at halftime or leading. I think it would be simplistic to say their form dropped so dramatically because they lost Silva and Neymar : I suspect it was the shock of coming up against a rampant Germany who were in similar form to the Portugal game.

Yes they were quite awful at the back in the first half and not much better in the second half, but I think Germany contributed a lot to making them look awful. Had they met a side like Argentina with much weaker firepower and a strong defence, it would have been a totally different story : might even have been a 0-0 draw and gone to penalties instead of it being a 7-1 defeat.

They crumbled into an embarrassing mess as soon as they went behind. The pressure, and the knowledge they were not good enough got to them, and they gave Germany the openings that any decent strikeforce would take.

They were terrible, and Germany seemed embarrassed to find it so easy, and I'm sure they eased off to try not to humiliate them too much, but the openings just kept coming, and they had to take some of them.

One of the German players actually admitted they took their foot off the pedal in order not to humiliate Brazil.

Brazil were indeed a shambles at the back once they went 2-0 down and were embarassingly bad but it would be a mistake to assume that they were there for the taking and that any team in the last 8 or last 16 could have knocked in three or four goals against them on Tuesday. I think the Germans were the only ones in the tournament who would have the talent and the supreme confidence and the bottle to race into a 2-0 lead against them and then add five more. Germany have gone on these rampant goalscoring sprees in recent times before whereas most other international sides are just not capable of it.

Eloratings may well have to downgrade Germany's rating based on tonight's performance. The Netherlands are not as good as the Germans and yet are cruising against a very poor Brazil side.

I think that is what we've been saying all along. Brazil are hopeless.

Having said that though, it's obvious that Germany are a far superior team to the Netherlands. Brazil have much more of the possession here (57%) and at least haven't been humiliated despite their dodgy defence.

I think it is pretty humiliating to be so far away from a Holland team that are not trying too hard.

Brazil have reverted to their dirty tactics from earlier games, and I'll be pleased to see the back of them.

This thread is a perfect example of not understanding football.

Even when it was 2-0 it was absolute car crash stuff. Now its 3-0, I think humiliation might actually be understating it.

You wonder if Germany's attack has been overhyped a little and Argentina's defence has actually been underhyped.

I would say Brazil played at a simillar level in both games - 52% possession against Germany and 58% against NL. Based on what we saw in the two matches, Germany certainly look a stronger and more potent side than the Dutch anyway.

The big unknown is how Argentina's defence will hold up against Germany's undoubted firepower.

Well I've watched every single World Cup finals game since 1982......

Brazil were useless tonight and worse than useless against Germany.

No possession statistic should tell you anything in respect of these or any other performances.

Tonight? I wouldn't go that far....Brazil had 2 shots on target to NL's 4, which tells us the Brazilians defended badly whilst the Dutch were sharp in front of goal.

By their standards, certainly. They shouldn't have even been in the semi finals and may have only deserved a last 16 spot at best this year.

If you are asking anyone to believe that Brazil should not be humiliated by two consecutive home defeats after 39 years unbeaten in competitive internationals at home, losing by a combined score of 10 goals to one, you are completely deluded.

They got to the last four on merit.

Of course it was a humiliation. Tonight's result was their worst one in the WC since the 98 final if we take Tuesday's result out of the equation, meaning they've had a quite disastrous week.

I have my doubts on that one. Chile hit the crossbar in the 118th minute and Brazil beat a very skillful and talented Colombian side by kicking them off the pitch.

Congratulations.

The fact is you get nothing for hitting the crossbar.

They also beat Colombia with Cesar having nothing to do for most of the game.
Of course, Colombia did manage to break Neymar's back.

The fact that they fell apart in the final two matches requires different analysis.

I presume your aside of "not understanding football" was aimed at me seeing as I started the thread?

As for the idea of ranking football teams, it seems to be fully accepted by everyone in the form of the FIFA world rankings which simply uses a different module to Eloratings.

Their approach to Colombia was utterly cynical though. Scolari feared Colombia's passing game and decided the only way to stop their attacks was to hack them down at every opportunity (and James Rodriguez was man marked and fouled constantly) and were aided in this by a very lax referee. Had they been allowed play their passing game, the match could easily have been a draw or perhaps even resulted in a win for the Colombians.

Stating how much possession a side had, when so much of it could and is meaningless and behind the opposition, how many shots a side had without actually judging the shots themselves and how one scoreline can be compared to another, especially given the massive difference in significance over a semi final and 3rd place playoff is massively missing the point of football. You are basically judging an entire sport on paper, instead of with your actual eyes. Brazil could have had 70% possession it wouldn't have made Germany look more impressive in retrospect than Holland, completely different situations.