'Soccer Rot': the real reason Brazil lost

Not everyone is still wondering why Brazil failed to perform so spectacularly. Was it really just because Neymar was out (which spawned some pretty hilarious memes, but was ultimately tragic for the team), or is there something deeper going on?

"Thousands of lights, thousands of lives. Not all of them, at midnight, thinking about the seven goals that Germany put past their team today. Most of them, probably, thinking about work, school, or even university the next day. Or worrying about money, or an argument with a father, a mother, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife. Lives as humdrum and banal, as happy and as sad, as lives lived anywhere else in the world."

As James Young writes here on Fusion, while some wonder if they can bounce back from their devastating loss as they have done before, life in Brazil goes on as it always does. That should be a comforting thought and a surprisingly profound lesson for us all.