The way Tite phrased it, it was a deviation. He rued the deflection off Marquinhos that brought an equaliser for Bruno Petkovic and a penalty shootout where Marquinhos missed the final kick. In the bigger picture, it was a deviation, too: from their supposed destiny.
Instead of the hexa, the longed-for sixth World Cup, they got the hex of the quarter-final, the hex of meeting European sides at the business end of tournaments. On the night Neymar found parity with Pele on Brazil’s all-time scoring chart, he came ever closer to being permanently separated from his country’s greatest legend: one will forever be described as a World Cup winner, the other is increasingly unlikely to belong in the same category. In due course, Neymar will stand alone in the scoring charts but those Brazilians who did not lift the World Cup, even those as great as Zico, can feel second-class citizens compared to the members of the five teams who did.
