Brazil Was Fearless

How does a team beat the world champions? Well, it depends on the world champion in question, but there's a general formula for any underdog to beat a more talented and experienced team. It usually takes a supposedly lesser team to create some chances, convert those chances with ruthless efficiency, and then sit back and protect that lead with some heroic defending. Pull off that and add in a little luck, and any team is beatable.

Watching Brazil take on Spain, winners of last summer's World Cup, my preconceived notions about underdogs were shattered almost immediately, to Brazil's benefit. Brazil created more than just a few chances, was not particularly efficient with them, and never once looked to sit back to protect its lead the way you'd expect every underdog to do. As a reward for their bravery, the Brazilians utterly smashed Spain with a 4-2 scoreline that was as comprehensive as it was shocking.

Coming into Tuesday's semifinal, Brazil had already done what I thought wasn't possible. It snuck into the knockout round in third place of its group, and then eked past host-side France in the quarterfinals with an 82nd minute winner. A semifinal run was just about the most anyone in Brazil dared to hope for, save for the players themselves. Doing it without its talisman, Marta—who was suspended for two matches after receiving a straight red card in the final group stage against, again, Spain—was perhaps a blessing in disguise. For Marta to get the chance to cast her storied international career in gold, her teammates would need to get the final without her.

There was no fear in the Brazil side on Tuesday, and part of that has to do with La Roja's profile as the best team in the world. Spain is that, but it is not invulnerable, as it had shown throughout this tournament. Though the Spaniards did win all of their group stage matches, all were a struggle; they had to come back from a 1-0 deficit against Japan in the opener, beat eventual last-place Nigeria with an 85th minute goal, and only took control of the Brazil game after Marta saw red. In the quarterfinal against a rising Colombia side, Spain went down 2-0, before clawing back with two late goals to send it to extra time and eventually winning on penalties. In other words, Spain was ripe for the taking.

Even the most optimistic of Brazil supporters couldn't have dreamed up a better start than what happened. In the sixth minute of the game, Spanish keeper Cata Coll received a back pass and tried a long clearance to relieve some Brazilian pressure, only for said clearance to clang into center back Irene Paredes, the scorer of that Colombia equalizer, and into the goal. Suddenly, Brazil was up 1-0, and it had barely had a touch of the ball.

Brazil then had two paths it could take from that shock lead: It could hunker down and try to strike on the counter, or it could keep its foot on the gas and go for broke. A smarter plan might have been the former, but Brazil rarely does that. Instead, the yellow-clad side brought the heat to the champs, and consistently created chances both on the break and in possession.

Here is where I thought that Spain actually had this game in the bag, because Brazil faltered when it mattered, wasting chance after golden chance to really punish the Spaniards. For the rest of the first half, the story played out as if on loop: Spain would try to break down Brazil, the Brazilians would eventually snuff it out and strike back hard, only for chances to go awry. Gabi Portilho, Priscila, Angelina, and Ludmila all had opportunities to score again for Brazil, yet none went in. With every miss, a Spanish lifeline became more tangible, and Brazil might have rued those chances if the Spaniards had taken back control.

Brazil had found a weakness in Spain's armor, though, and it kept exploiting it on the counter, spreading out the Spanish backline and attacking the empty spaces both to the sides and behind. Eventually, that paid off. Just before the halftime whistle, wing back Yasmim hit a perfectly timed, perfectly weighted low cross to the back side of the box, and Portilho finally made good, slotting a first-touch roller that got past Coll:

Heading into the break, Spain was in roughly the same position as in the Colombia game: down two goals, dominating the ball, and probably knowing that one goal would wipe out all of Brazil's momentum. Credit to Spain, because it tried; in the second half, the Spaniards had 77 percent of the possession and racked up 20 shots. Once again, though, Brazil refused to do the expected thing of turtling into a deep defensive shell and trying to weather the onslaught until the final whistle. Instead, it kept following its same recipe, exploiting Spain's backline repeatedly. The reward came in the 72nd minute. Brazil was once again attacking on the counter, and Adriana found the ball at her feet just meters from the goal. Her shot hit the crossbar, but it bounced back to Portilho, who headed it back into the onrushing path of Adriana, who nodded it over the goal line from point-blank range.

At that point, it felt to me like Brazil had done it. Spain wasn't ready to give up so easily, though, and so it kept pushing, knowing two important things: 18 minutes is a long time, and there has been a lot of stoppage time at these Olympics, so it was probably closer to a half hour for three goals. Hard as it may be, it's not impossible to come back in that time, and Spain finally got on the score sheet 13 minutes after Adriana's goal.

As the 90 minutes came to a close, the fourth referee's board indicated 15 (!!!) minutes of stoppage time, and it was truly game on. Spain, maybe more than any current national team, can score out of nothing and in lightning speed, and so 15 minutes felt like an eternity for Brazil to sit back and defend. It had an uphill climb to finish the job and get to its first Olympic final since 2008, and it was going to be diffic—oh wait, Brazil just scored again:

Maybe more than any of the other goals, Kerolin's clincher exemplified Brazil's strategy. While most teams would try to do the parking the bus strategy, the reigning NWSL player of the year was pressing hard in the 91st minute, forcing Oihane Hernández to fumble the ball into the charging Brazilian, who then latched onto it and charged at Coll. The Spanish goalkeeper rather perplexingly didn't charge at Kerolin, and the North Carolina Courage player had more than enough time to line up a shot through the keeper's legs and into Brazilian soccer lore.

Spain would go on to score one more goal in the 12th minute of stoppage time to make the scoreline a more respectable 4-2, but it was only a consolation, and a meager one at that. Brazil saw out the remaining time, a bit nervy but nonetheless never in real danger, and now will face the United States in the final on Saturday.

Could Brazil knock off its third tournament favorite in a row en route to its first gold medal? Honestly, why not? The United States players are visibly exhausted, having played five games in nine days, with their two knockout round games going into extra time. The USWNT didn't look particularly dominant against Germany in its own semifinal, while Brazil handed Spain its worst loss in some time. Both on form and in execution, Brazil is flying higher at the moment, and the return of Marta will at least give its players a motivational boost, and perhaps maybe an on-field one as well. (I'd be hesitant, if I were Brazilian manager Arthur Elias, in swapping things around to deploy Marta from the start, but there might not be a cooler moment than her coming on as a super sub later in the final.) For a country that probably would've been overjoyed with a bronze, Brazil is now in position to bring home the gold, and all it took was a fearless performance from top to bottom against the mightiest foe in women's soccer.