Lucky little fish, by Claude Iosso

So I had Chile beating Brazil. It didn’t happen. The weight of 75 years of history and a poor nation’s passion for futbol finally crushed the lusty lads in red. Still, my skepticism about Brazil was confirmed. Neymar is awfully good, maybe even great, but his teammates are just good. Many start for top European clubs, but they are not the engines of those teams, they’re the foot soldiers — little fish in big ponds. Even Neymar should be ranked below Alexis Sanchez of Chile on Barcelona’s pecking order of strikers.

Brazil has won five World Cups because it has often had several players who dominated the top teams in the top leagues. This year’s edition of the Selecao can barely string three passes together. The early game Saturday featured a record number of fouls. I felt bad for Chile, but they didn’t ever seem ready to take the game in hand.

So it was the fickle penalty-kick shootout, and it was surprising just how bad the pros are at taking spot kicks or just how soul-crushing the pressure is.

In the second game, another one of the minnows of the Americas who have been in fine form this World Cup came through. Without Louis Suarez, Uruguay appeared, well, toothless against Colombia, at least in the first half. The team that won the World Cup twice long ago and made it to the semis in 2010 did push in the second half, which suggested that the subtraction of Diego Forlan was perhaps more important than the addition of Suarez. What a drag it is getting old.

By the time you read this, the Netherlands-Mexico and perhaps even Costa Rica-Greece matches may be over. Here’s to the other little fish of the Americas — I drink a large margarita to you. Mexico’s coach, Miguel Herrera is nearing deity status, and is a manic breath of fresh air. If only he could use his skyrocketing cache an tell his countrymen to stop yelling “faggot” every time the opponents take a goal kick. It is gay pride weekend here in Seattle.

Oh yeah, I knew the Americans were going to go through despite the mildly disquieting last-second tie with Portugal. They’re a spunky bunch and Jurgen knows bratwurst from bullshit.

– Claude Iosso