“This phase has passed”, said Micale. Fireworks burst over the stadium, auto horns blared and fans sang and tossed beer into the air. But the seleção faithful chose optimism, and backed their boys to revenge the team that had abducted their morale inside the same stadium only two years ago. Brazil defeated Germany in the final, 5-4 via penalty shootout.
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The five-time world champion has won all titles and all categories but its bad luck at the Olympic Games – seemingly a jinx – continued to pursue it every four years. Neymar was genuinely the happiest person in the world when this happened, and he deserved to be.
Both teams pressed and probed as the contested drifted into extra time, but the exertions of that energy-sapping opening hour had taken their toll after another sticky night in Rio.
It took penalties to decide the outcome, and after Matthias Ginter, Gnabry, Brandt and Süle scored for Germany, and Renato Augusto, Marquinhos, Rafinha and Luan also converted their spot kicks, it was substitute Grischa Proemel who saw his effort saved by Weverton and left Neymar to fire Brazil to glory – coolly planting his effort in the top corner.
The stop set the stage for Neymar, as if scripted.
Meanwhile, head coach Rogerio Micale proudly declared that “Brazilian football is not dead” after leading the nation to gold.
“I can’t believe to describe my feelings”.
He just expressed gratitude to his teammates, family, and friends who were there by his team during the most hard moments.
Neymar celebrates after scoring the decisive penalty kick to give host Brazil gold. He did not elaborate.
“We knew there was huge responsibility on the Olympic team because of how important football is to the country”.
He pointed out that none of his players were involved in the World Cup semi-final – with the Olympic squads only able to feature three players aged older than 23.
Fans supported their team, and celebrated the win wildly [Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images] The 2016 Rio Olympic Soccer Finale between Brazil and Germany started with the host nation taking the lead in the 26th minute through Neymar. But the match still had huge significance for Brazil, which had never won gold.
“Beloved nation, the gold is ours”, Weverton said, still holding on to the game ball. “Will all due respect to everybody who has a handsome history and tried for a long time, God put this generation in this position to make history and we did”.
“This was really a hard situation for us”, coach Rogerio Micale said afterwards. “We have replied with good football”, he said. “We have great potential and hope to achieve great things in future”.
History major: Matt Centrowitz of the United States ran from the front and held off Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria at the line to win the gold medal in the men’s 1,500 meters – the USA’s first victory in the event since 1908.
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“Now the respect is back”, said fan Guilherme Junior.
