“As Pelé famously pointed out, all you really need is a ball and the green, green grass. Plus of course, in his long-form World Cup version, a vast media presence that could pack out the St Petersburg Stadium on its own; a bubble of crushing continental-scale expectation; and above all tears, tears and more tears. Nobody does World Cup angst quite like Brazil. As Tite’s talented team wrestled their way to a fraught but ultimately useful 2-0 defeat of Costa Rica by the Gulf of Finland there were howls, cries of frustration, and constant reminders that for Brazil simply being present at the World Cup is to become immersed in a vast overblown operetta of fear, joy and lurking emotional collapse.” Guardian
