Doha’s Stadium 974 thrummed to the samba beat on Monday night as Brazilian fans brought Latin American swagger to this patch of Qatar. Casemiro fired Brazil into the knockout stages of the 2022 World Cup finals with a 1-0 victory over Switzerland.
The midfielder’s spectacular 83rd-minute goal sent Brazil through with a game to spare and lit a touch paper to a contest that had struggled to smolder up to then.
But the sea of Brazilian fans won’t care about any of that as 80 or so minutes of sloppy passing and directionless play was forgotten in the hysteria of the final minutes.
Tens of thousands of yellow shirts had painted the inside of this quirky stadium bright yellow in a frieze of canary, broken up only by small pockets of local fans in traditional white robes and a smattering of red Swiss shirts. (Reuters)
