金融时报:足球王国何遭世纪惨败？

足球王国何遭世纪惨败？

世界杯首场半决赛，东道主巴西以1比7惨败德国，令不少球迷大跌眼镜。这究竟是内马尔、席尔瓦两员大将缺席所致？还是桑巴足球传统战术打法的失败？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

shell-shocked 非常震惊的，极度惊恐的

scoreline ['skɔ:lain] （体育比赛结果的）分数栏

feint [feɪnt] 假动作

dribble ['drɪb(ə)l] 运球，带球

spectre ['spektə] 缠绕心头的恐惧，凶兆

distraught [dɪ'strɔːt] 心神错乱的，忧心如焚的

incumbent [ɪn'kʌmb(ə)nt] 义不容辞的

Brazil shell-shocked by team's World Cup horror show (550 words)

Simon Kuper and Thalita Carrico in São Paulo, and Joe Leahy in Belo Horizonte

It's hard to think of a bigger humiliation in sporting history than Brazil 1 Germany 7. Football teams have lost 7-1 before, but never the self-proclaimed “country of football”, winner of five World Cups, host and bookmakers' favourite for this tournament, playing in a semifinal.

Nate Silver, the US statistician, said that based on the teams' pre-match rankings this was the most unexpected scoreline in the World Cup's history.

Symbolically, it was a fitting end to Brazil's long years of economic boom. But in sporting terms, it was something more specific: the end of Brazil's footballing tradition. The phrase jogo bonito, or “beautiful game”, can now be ditched along with clichés about “samba football”. Brazilians stopped offering feints, dribbles and beautiful goals long ago. They must now surely realise their country needs to adopt a new, faster-passing, more European, more German style.

The crowd in Belo Horizonte and millions across Brazil – this may prove the largest TV audience in Brazilian history – watched in disbelief. Some fans left the stadium at half-time, disgusted by a performance that will mark Brazil's footballing psyche forever.

Brazilian TV showed fans weeping and even collapsing as Germany scored five unanswered goals in 30 first-half minutes. Miroslav Klose's 16th goal in World Cups for Germany – a record for the tournament – passed almost unnoticed. Brazilian players humiliated themselves further in the second half by diving ostentatiously in the hope of penalties.

Paulo Marujo, a fan watching from São Paulo, said: “I never imagined Brazil would not make it to the final. Now I don't know what I'm going to do.”

But many Paulistas watching in city-centre bars were laughing, as were pharmacy workers crowded around a television set in their shop on the central Avenida Paulista. A lot of Brazilians had doubted their team all along. The Seleção reached the semifinal after kicking Colombia's playmaker James Rodriguez throughout the quarter-final. In the same violent match Brazil lost their captain, Thiago Silva, to suspension, and their talisman, Neymar, to a broken back.

Neymar was the spectre at the German feast. He is Brazil's last undisputed purveyor of jogo bonito – but one man is a thin foundation for a tradition. Most of Brazil's players in recent World Cups have played an ugly, slow, defensive game in the service of one or two geniuses, such as Romario, Ronaldo or Neymar.

In 2004, after German football hit a low, coaches Jürgen Klinsmann and Joachim Löw led a reinvention of national tradition. The result was the “beautiful game” of cerebral fast-passing football that Germany played on Tuesday, applauded at the end by the Brazilian crowd.

Brazilian football needs to start again too, ideally led by German coaches.

Afterwards Brazil's players wept on the field. President Dilma Rousseff must feel distraught too, ahead of elections in October. However, there is historically no correlation between Brazil's performance in World Cups and the incumbent's performance in elections later that year. Fans have held Ms Rousseff responsible for the waste, overspending but generally smooth organisation of this tournament. Responsibility for the 7-1 lies firstly with Brazil's hapless players and their unimaginative coach Felipe Scolari, but more broadly with the country's outdated football tradition.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.According to the authors, what is the main reason for Brazil's failure?

A.President Rousseff's overspending on the tournament.

B.Brazil's palyers did not get luck.

C.Brazil's outmoded football tradition.

D.The coach Felipe Scolari did not do well in the game.

答案(1)

2.What do we know about Brazil's performance in the World Cup?

A.Brazilians had no doubt about their team all the time.

B.Brazil's performance in World Cups has nothing to do with the elections later.

C.Brazil's player now keeps the record for the tournament.

D.Brazil lost their captain because of his broken back.

答案(2)

3.Which of the following teams reinvented the football tradition in the country after hitting a low in 2004?

A.Colombia.

B.Brazil.

C.Germany.

D.Holland.

答案(3)

4.Brazil used to offer the following except?

A.Feints.

B.Dribbles.

C.Fast passing.

D.Beatiful goals.

答案(4)

* * *

(1)答案：C.Brazil's outmoded football tradition.

解释：作者在文末指出“but more broadly with the country's outdated football tradition”，“more”一词表明这是主要原因，其余均为次要原因。

(2)答案：B.Brazil's performance in World Cups has nothing to do with the elections later.

解释：从历史上来看，巴西选举与世界杯上表现无联系。A选项，部分巴西人对国家队持怀疑态度。C选项，德国队克洛泽目前是世界杯进球最多的球员。D选项，背部受伤的不是巴西队队长而是队员内马尔。

(3)答案：C.Germany.

解释：原文：In 2004, after German football hit a low, coaches Jürgen Klinsmann and Joachim Löw led a reinvention of national tradition. 德国队教练克林斯曼与勒夫在2004年率领低谷中的德国队改变传统。

(4)答案：C.Fast passing.

解释：Fast passing是现在德国队善用的。