Passion, pressure and prayers carrying Brazil on seven steps to heaven

The pressure on the host nation to bury their 64-year-old World Cup demons is immense and manifesting itself in varying ways among Luiz Felipe Scolari’s emotional team

It was as Atlético Mineiro trailed 2-0 at half-time in the second leg of last season’s Copa Libertadores final against Olimpia of Paraguay that one of their supporters, wired on a cocktail of nerves, frustration and booze, decided to pop out for a smoke.

He needed it. The Mineirão in Belo Horizonte was a maelstrom. Tears and prayers were seemingly everywhere. Another fan further down the row bawled his eyes out as he bellowed to the heavens. It was as if he were having an argument with the Big Referee upstairs. Atlético had never previously won the Libertadores. Their hated rivals, Cruzeiro, were on course to take the Brazilian league title. Atlético had to win this game.

Two minutes into the second half, and there was hope for Atlético when Jô, the Brazil striker, pulled one back. It was his seventh goal of the Libertadores and it made him the tournament’s leading scorer. Our cigarette-smoking supporter did not see the goal but he was slightly happier when he returned to his seat.

The second half roared on towards its conclusion, the tension close to unbearable, when he announced that he would have to nip out once more as his earlier exit had clearly been the reason for Jô’s goal. Superstition is a massive part of Brazilian football. And, would you know it, the Atlético defender, Leonardo Silva, promptly found an 87th-minute equaliser to force extra time.

The fan, though, did not come back. Word would reach his friends in the stand that he had been arrested after overheating and getting into a fight. Atlético went on to win on penalties and the 56,000 inside the Mineirão took leave of their senses.

For a snapshot of how Brazil can live its football – with the exhortations to higher powers, the wild extremes of emotion and the borderline insanity – this one pretty much covers it.

The crowd for that occasion at the Mineirão was a proper Brazilian crowd, in that it was mixed, in terms of creed and class. Commentators at the World Cup have noted how those for each of Brazil’s matches thus far have been dominated by the so-called social elite. Nor have there been the accoutrements of that Libertadores final such as drums and firecrackers; they have been banned.

The stadium-going Brazil fans, though, have lived it all with much the same feeling. Nobody inside the Mineirão last Saturday, for example, for the home nation’s epic penalty shootout victory over Chile in the last 16 will forget the assault on the senses that began with the a cappella yelling of the anthem and climaxed when the Chile defender Gonzalo Jara missed the decisive penalty.

At the end, a few of the Brazil players slumped into the turf and lay there, face-down, for a couple of minutes. Physically and emotionally, they looked shattered.

It has been a wonder that they have been able to play at all. The burden on them has been immense because, in addition to carrying the hopes and dreams of 200 million deeply passionate people, they have the added pressure of the 64-year-old score with history.

The defeat to Uruguay at the Maracanã in the 1950 World Cup final – Brazil’s one previous tournament as hosts – left a scar on the national psyche and it is no exaggeration to say that the goalkeeper, Moacir Barbosa, carried the blame for the result to his grave.

The only way to banish the ghosts is to lift the trophy. Nothing else will do. Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Brazil manager, has talked of the “seven steps to heaven” and his team have (just about) completed the first four.Colombia stand in the way of the fifth in Friday’s quarter-final in Fortaleza. It might have been Uruguay, whose fans have been spotted here in “Cinquinho 50” shirts only for them to fall to Colombia in the last 16.

Brazil’s players have leant on their spiritual beliefs in order to cope. Almost all of them raise their arms and point their index fingers to the sky when they cross the white line while there have routinely been prayers on the pitch after matches.

In the primal aftermath of the Chile victory, the goalkeeper, Júlio César, and his back-up, Victor, went into the back of the net to retrieve some rosary beads. They were a charm of Victor’s and he had given them to Júlio César before the shootout.

Victor, the Atlético goalkeeper, had them in his net for the Libertadores final against Olimpia, having been given them by a fan behind the goal before the semi-final shootout win over Newell’s Old Boys, in which he also starred. Atlético had equalised in the sixth minute of injury time to force extra time against the Argentinian club.

Júlio César cried before the shootout against Chile and he was overcome as he spoke to the media afterwards. Tears and trauma have tracked the Seleção. Thiago Silva, the captain, described himself as a “cry baby” last Friday and he said that he would have to stop talking “because I’m just going to start crying”.

Silva is one of Brazil’s most emotional players. He could not watch Neymar’s penalty against Croatia in the opening group tie while he has spoken of the anxiety he has felt, along with stories of the fervour among the home support.

“In the car on the way to the press conference last Friday [in Belo Horizonte], there was another car coming up alongside us and asking us to stop for an autograph,” Silva said. “Obviously, we couldn’t stop but these situations show how much the Brazilians love their team. You travel on the team bus and there are thousands of people waving and screaming.”

Scolari has also admitted that when he is alone, he feels “unsafe” and it is “impossible” for him or his players to relax. English footballers rarely admit to insecurities but the Brazilians are open and out-there. It is one of the reasons why the neutrals have warmed to them.

Ahead of Colombia, though, the psychological state of this young team is a talking point. “Nobody wants to be this World Cup’s Barbosa,” said Paulo Vinicius Coelho, the respected Brazilian commentator. “Now, we run the risk of having not one Barbosa but 23. The team is a sea of nerves and anxiety.”

The drama has been unrelenting. After the final group game against Cameroon, when Scolari’s team cut loose in the second-half to win 4-1, there was positivity and momentum but it became a grind against Chile, which was marked by long balls and ugliness. Brazilians appear to have abandoned the notion that they have to win in style. Now, they would take victory however it came.

Another ordeal looms.