FOOTBALL: If there was one gold medal the hosts wanted, this was it.
The home of football had every title in the cabinet except for Olympic gold – until Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro.
And just for good measure it came in the most dramatic of fashions as well. With scores between Brazil and Germany level at 1-1 at the end of extra-time the match entered a penalty shootout.
With both teams putting their opening four spot-kicks into the back of the net, Brazilian goalkeeper Weverton saved Nils Petersen’s penalty to set up the history making finale.
It was favourite son Neymar’s turn to step up. The Barcelona star was a part of the side that lost 7-1 to Germany as they hosted the 2014 World Cup and he wanted this more than anyone.
As Peterson returned in despair Neymar strode towards the penalty box knowing the weight of 200 million Brazilians rested on his shoulders.
He positioned the ball, walked back a few metres and turned towards the goal. In what seemed like a bid to further extend this moment in Brazilian sports history by a few more milliseconds, he stuttered on his run before slotting the ball past the German keeper.
The stadium is a good 45 minutes from the Olympic Village but all those athletes not at the famous Maracanã would have surely heard the deafening screams of the locals.
Neymar’s teammates sprinted towards him at a pace Usain Bolt, who was in the stands watching, would have been proud of.
The celebrations of this historic medal had begun. Players wrapped themselves in their flag and thanked their tens of thousands of fans in the stands that had not for one second stopped singing, whistling and jeering through the 120 minutes of action.
The medal ceremony arrived and the biggest cheer was saved for their biggest hero.
Neymar kissed his gold medal and he looked to the heavens – Obrigado, obrigado (thanks).
It would have taken someone with plenty of faith to think that was not some sort of international football curse against him. Perseverance is king though and now Neymar, and the Brazilians, have the gold medal they’ve so long yearned for.
They’ll be sambering in the streets for days.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
