Mumbai: Neymar shed tears of joy as he scored the winning goal delivering Brazil their first ever gold medal in soccer. Brazil won 5-4 in penalty shootout against Germany after a nerve racking 120 minutes in the final at the Maracana stadium.
Brazil lost in three Olympics final in 1984, 1988 and 2012. Out of 306 gold medals to offer, they finally got the gold they most dreadfully wanted. For a country that regards football as its birthright, first time Olympics champions was definitely a historic event for the Brazilians. Brazil wanted to wipe the humiliating defeat against Germany in 2014.
The entire Maracana stadium was filled with army of yellow. German players were booed even when they took the pitch for practice. The Brazilian national anthem was sung as if it was a war cry.
Even though it was the Olympics match and it was only Germany’s under 23 team, the desire for some sort of satisfaction after the humiliating 7-1 defeat at the World Cup two years ago felt raw, almost desperate.
Neymar scored a free kick at 26th minute to put the hosts ahead. The hosts conceded their first goal of the tournament in the second half to equalize the score 1-1. The Brazilian attack was looking dangerous at times in the second half but the German defense was also solid. After 120 minutes of nerve racking game of football, the game went into penalty shootouts.
As Germany scored four goals of their four penalty strikes, Brazil feared for the worst. Everyone in the Brazil camp was tensed but as Weverton dived to his right to save from Nils Peterson, the entire Maracana erupted. Neymar took the final penalty shot as his placed his penalty high in the net, entire Brazil celebrated.
This match was no less than a war for the yellow army. On 20th August 2016 on 8:10 pm the entire Brazil was on rejoicing mode.