Brazil narrowly escapes in shootout

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil – Tight and tense as it was, it was enough to keep Brazil’s national obsession of winning the World Cup on home soil from taking a desperately disappointing turn.

And it wasn’t Neymar, the country’s poster boy for this year’s World Cup, that played the key role this time. It was goalkeeper Julio Cesar, the country’s scapegoat from the last World Cup, who made several crucial saves and even got some help from the woodwork in a 3-2 penalty shootout win over Chile.

With the score level at 1-1 on Saturday, Brazil was inches away from an early exit when Chile forward Mauricio Pinilla hit the crossbar in the final moments of extra time.

Then, on the final kick of the match and after a pair of saves from Cesar in the shootout, Gonzalo Jara hit the post.

“I believe the Brazilian people just needed this,” said Cesar, who made a mistake four years ago in South Africa that led to a quarterfinal loss. “The players, everybody else, we needed this.”

Neymar, David Luiz and Marcelo scored in the shootout, and Cesar saved penalties from Pinilla and Alexis Sanchez before watching Jara’s final attempt hit the post.

The game over, some Brazilian players fell to the ground, exhausted and emotionally drained. Willian, who missed a penalty for Brazil, sobbed uncontrollably, as Fred helped him to his feet.

The Chileans stood still, staring into the ground, wiping the sweat off their faces.

“Do you think I can be satisfied with the result?” Chile coach Jorge Sampaoli said. “We’ve played a hard 120 minutes even if everybody was against us in the stadium.”

Brazil dominated the first half against Chile and took the lead when Luiz scored following a corner kick. After Sanchez equalized for Chile, Brazil had several chances to regain the lead.

But after referee Howard Webb disallowed Hulk’s second-half goal, ruling he had used his arm to control a long pass, Brazil lost the initiative.

Pressing deep inside Brazil’s half, Chile forced the home side into making mistakes or resorting to long passes to Hulk and Neymar.

And, again, it was Cesar that often came up big, making a spectacular save on Charles Aranguiz’s shot to keep Chile from taking the lead in the second half.

“We tried to give everything, we tried to fight for a dream, and we didn’t achieve it,” Chile midfielder Arturo Vidal said. “But we gave all our effort on the pitch.”

In the end, however, it was Brazil moving on to the quarterfinals, with the hopes of a nation on the backs of every player.