Quote:If Neymar stayed on his feet a bit more they might have won
I beg to differ - sure Neymar is a very skilled player and a major force even in a team as great as Brazil is, but, he's more of a legend in his own mind, which is too detrimental. Realistically he's not even in the top five best players out there, in spite of Pele's opinion that he's the best. Pele's "unbiased" opinion, lol. Maybe top 10 , but that's just a maybe .. Anyway , as for Brazil possibly winning if Neymar had spent more time standing up, this match was actually rare exception for him, since he spent far less time rolling in pain than in any previous match , so not sure he could have done much more that what he did . Also, if Hazard wouldn't have missed ( very uncharacteristic of him ) three separate passes inches away from the box which fell short of their destination to his teammates, while they had a 3 on 2 and a 4 on 3 advantage, that could have easily been a 5 to 1, or maybe 5 to 2 result ( Courtois deserves a lot of credit for a couple of extraordinary saves ). All we can hope for now is for Belgium to go all the way and win the Cup they clearly deserve, and not to choke ( ugh, remembering the Euros where they lost to Wales, a squad which with the sole exception of Bale is little more than a college team caliber ..)
And somehow karma got to Neymar in this match as well ; he was truly fouled in the box, and that should have been a PK, but because of his continuous dives / fakes , the ref didn't give him the benefit of the doubt . Good, maybe he'll learn a lesson from this and come back in the next World Cup a mature player as opposed to a whiny actor . He has brilliance and talent to spare, but regretfully marred by a shifty attitude and all the pure crap he tries to pull off .
