Brazil didn’t lose 7-1 because it is a nation on the verge of hysterical collapse. Despite the impression given by the TV pictures, Brazil was never going to grind to a halt, or come weeping into the streets. The players were horribly keyed up within their sealed environment. The media were obsessed with the players being horribly keyed up. But Brazil itself? People were drinking and laughing and chatting away in the bars of São Paulo on Tuesday night. It is a patronising myth that Brazilians are dementedly obsessed with football, just as it is a ludicrous simplification to suggest the original Maracanazo created “a scar” on the “national consciousness” (there is, let’s be honest, no such thing as “a national consciousness”). People cry in the stadium when they lose, then go home and stop crying just like anywhere else, and without samba dancing on the way, or weeping about Neymar, or worshipping Pelé. Update: Brazil still not collapsing.