Football: Brazilians left to pick up pieces after loss

David Luiz will live with humiliation. Photo / AP

The party is over. The carnival that has gripped Brazil over the past month has come to a shuddering, embarrassing halt. The green and yellow bunting that has bounced in patriotic joy down every street in the country this morning dangles limp. Now the hangover starts. And it is likely to be a long and painful one.

For everybody concerned with Wednesday's abject capitulation to Germany the future looks suddenly bleak. For the players the trauma could be sustained. It is hard to see how Fred, Hulk or David Luiz will ever be able to shake off association with such humiliation. Oscar looked on the final whistle already a broken man. For Luiz Felipe Scolari there is the rest of his life ahead as the manager who failed his nation - some burden.

But the people who will be really nervous are the politicians behind the competition, those who brought it here in the first place. For them, the idea that Monday would see the ultimate party for the host nation was imperative. And now it has been ripped from them by an unstoppable German team, who played football on a level once assumed to be the preserve of those in yellow.

The country's leaders absolutely required their team to make the final. For them, failure was not an option. When first mooted, this was meant to be a competition which showcased Brazil as a modern, thrusting, ready-to-do-business economy. The focus changed when it became clear all it would deliver was a bunch of hugely expensive white elephant stadiums.

Then it was sold as the chance to prove that Brazil is the best in the world at something.

Winning became everything. All that mattered. For the politicians who had staked so much on this project, victory was essential.

And when that circus failed to materialise, it was the politicians who were immediately blamed. As Germany played untouchable football on the Belo Horizonte pitch, the crowd quickly began to articulate blame. Fred and Oscar were subject to sustained and widespread vituperation. They were quickly joined in a roll of dishonour by the country's president, Dilma Rousseff.

In many ways Wednesday's embarrassment was the ultimate reckoning for a tournament always built on a lie. Initially that lie was that it would transform the country economically. Then it became the lie that football success would restore national self-esteem, a lie because the playing resources available were utterly inadequate for the task. There was no way this Brazil team could deliver what was required. From the opening game against Croatia they were a disaster waiting to happen.

One evening in Fortaleza, I saw something which perfectly summed up who is benefiting most from this World Cup. In a restaurant, a bunch of Fifa representatives were enjoying their caipirinhas. They were having a ball. As were we, the media, reporting back on the fun.

Leaving the restaurant, I walked past a sight that will live with me for a long time. On a narrow concrete shelf under the portico of an office building, an entire family were sleeping. We are all used to the depressing sight of homeless individuals out on the streets of Britain. But this was something different. It was a mother, stretched out on her back, asleep on the concrete with two toddlers lying prone on top of her. Around them were their possessions.

It was a sight that was a pertinent reminder that when it comes to the beneficiaries of major sporting events, those at the head of the queue for long-term reward are the ones wearing blazers. And those at the back are the locals obliged to pay the bill. After Wednesday, those locals do not even have sporting success to sustain them.