Empty seats have been prevalent across Rio, but not at Maracana Stadium, where they packed in to watch Neymar and Co. But the team picked up the pace and will face Germany, which beat Nigeria 2-0 in the other semifinal match.
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Marquinhos and Luan each contributed a goal in the second half before Neymar got his second of the match on a penalty in the 91st minute.
Honduran defender Johnny Palacios’ clumsy clearing attempt from the top of his goal box bounced off Neymar’s shins and the slim forward kept his balance and followed it toward the net. Icho also is the first woman to win an individual gold medal in four straight Olympics, having started her historic run at the inaugural women’s tournament in Athens in 2004. “We don’t want to disappoint the fans”.
But his recent level of play – victories over Denmark in the group stage, Colombia in the quarterfinals, and Honduras in the semis – has been more than enough to bring the fans back to his side. “It is unbelievable, fabulous”, Germany coach Horst Hrubesch said.
Footballers like Neymar, who draws his hefty paycheque from the Spanish giant Barcelona, are the country’s most famous exports. He delights absolutely everyone with his talent.
“We didn’t play well”.
His coach thinks Neymar is a disrupting force for other teams. Neymar and Matthias Ginter were the only players on both rosters, but Neymar missed the World Cup match with an injury, while Ginter didn’t make it off the bench for Germany at any point in the tournament two years ago.
“We are very happy to be in the final and to have a medal”. The team has embraced him. There are a lot of pressures and demands on him, but he is handling it in a positive way. The Brazilian federation took this Olympics so seriously that it asked Neymar to skip the Copa America Centenario earlier this summer and focus all his energy on these two weeks.
The host now has the chance to ease some of the pain caused by a 7-1 humiliation at the hands of Germany on home soil at the 2014 World Cup by delivering Brazil’s first football gold medal. That win was the largest ever worldwide loss for a Brazilian national team and could hardly have come at a worse time as Brazilian football was plunged into despair, self doubt and recrimination. With Neymar on the field this time, everyone is hoping for a different outcome Saturday when the same two nations meet at the Maracana.
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The 25-year-old is the overwhelming favourite to add a gold in Rio to the silver she won in London four years ago, with a 2016 time that is almost a second faster than her closest rivals. “But I still believe in Brazilian football”.
