Brazil were already moving up the gears — driven on by the game’s outstanding player, Willian — when Neymar showed his capacity to see the game in different dimensions.
Taking the ball across the edge of Mexico’s area, he was aware of Willian arriving into space behind him, backheeled to him and spun away. He was in the six-yard box to slide home the Chelsea man’s returning cross. Yet the Mexico manager’s claim Neymar’s histrionics had taken the ‘pace’ out of the game and ruined his team’s tempo was pushing things. Antonio Mateu, was close enough to find no fault, yet Neymar tumbled away to his right in an act of melodrama which took four minutes to conclude. Mercifully, no one saw the need to involve VAR. The Mexican coach, Juan Carlos Osorio, launched into a quite understandable attack on Neymar’s gamesmanship.
‘It’s a shame we wasted so much time for one player,’ he said. ‘The game stopped for four minutes and that’s very negative for football. It’s a man’s sport and there shouldn’t be so much acting.’
The controversy descended to low farce when Neymar arrived, as man of the match, to discuss the game and Brazilian journalists proceeded to frame questions to him about Osorio’s comments as an example of ‘a loser’s whining’.
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