Tite had just pledged to dance along with his Brazil squad, and to hell with the churls, when he alighted upon another form of visual display. “When we paint a painting, the entire painting is the athletes,” he said. “They are the ones who are portrayed in this painting and we are just participants. We just contribute to the painting; the painting is just the players themselves.”
If they are to draw a line under two barren decades, Brazil will have to master all the arts. The choreographed routines that greeted each goal against South Korea were looked upon dimly in some quarters but that is a trifling concern. The more pressing theme is whether Croatia, with their savvy and seasoned core, will allow as many opportunities for festivity when they face Tite’s players in the last eight.
