Why Most Football Fans Hate Brazil

Brazil. You may already have heard of that fantastic, South-American country filled with different cultures and origins. You also may have heard that there is currently an international football tournament going on there, called the World Cup. If you know nothing about this, then don't waste your time and stop reading. If you do, please continue. For those who have followed the national Brazilian football team in the whole tournament so far, you might have seen, witnessed all the controversial decisions and situations regarding penalties and cards being shown where Brazil got favored and almost ''helped'' by the referee to win that particular game. Let's analyze and explain why those controversial decisions made the majority of the football fans strongly dislike or even hate Brazil.

It started with their first game, the game against Croatia. The ref in that game was the Japanese Yuichi Nishimura, who, and I quote, ''only spoke with the Croatia players in Japanese as they sought explanation for key call that turned the match'' (Daily Telegraph). It is quite understandable that a referee is under massive pressure when the host country is one of the teams, but what Nishimura did was scandalous to say the least. He not only gave an incredibly soft penalty to Brazil, he also disallowed a goal for Croatia and whenever the Croatians tried to talk to him, he spoke in Japanese. According to Croatia player Corluka, every 50/50 decision went to Brazilian players. Not very professional.

After the Croatia game, Brazil played against Cameroon and Mexico where they got less controversial decisions helping them. At some point a Brazil player tried to dive theatrically in Mexico's own box but shockingly the ref in that game, Cüneyt Çakir, did not give a penalty. Then Brazil had to play Chile, and again the referee did not show any sign of favoring Brazil or giving them any controversial decisions. Brazil was winning games, and the ref was not the main topic anymore.

But then, the game that changed nearly everything came: Brazil vs Colombia. With 54 fouls (!!!) it was the most number of infringements of any match played so far at this year's tournament. It was like both teams were playing with a bunch of Nigel De Jong's kicking each other every freakin time as the minutes passed by. Referee did give very little cards for both teams and was the main topic of this game. He also disallowed a legitimate goal of Colombia which made their loss extra painful.

Colombia was before the game seen as a sympathetic team who were playing with attractive football, so for the Colombians this loss meant that they joined the ridiculously large Anti-Brazil group which also includes many Argentinians, Chileans and Mexicans and many other countries Brazil has beaten.

It is also hard to enjoy this Brazil-side when you compare to them to previous Brazil-teams. When you used to had the likes of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Kaka being in their primes ready to fight for their countries and compare them to the current Brazil-stars, you realize how big the quality in difference is. Add the fact that Brazil-coach Scolari prefers to play a defensive football style and high intensity (which results sometimes into ruby-like events like the Colombia game), you can come to the conclusion that this Brazil team is not the good old ''joga bonito'' Brazil we used to know, one that was filled with supertalents and top elite players.

And then you had all the government hate from the actual Brazilians, who did not want to have their government spend so much money on the whole damn thing while it could have been used for more, useful projects and events, for themselves.

So - while not generalizing all football fans, the Brazilian football team has become a strongly disliked team by many football fans. And unless we are going to see more ''Joga Bonito'' and less beneficial decisions from the Ref, this isn't going to change most likely.