SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- For the second time in the nation’s soccer-obsessed history, Brazil saw its hopes of winning a World Cup on home soil dashed. After waiting 64 years and spending nearly $11 billion to host the tournament, Brazil’s forces proved no match for the powerful German blitz. Before 30 minutes had elapsed, invading German troops had launched five successful offensives against Brazil, eventually trampling the host country by a score of seven to one. Sources reported that some Brazilians managed to escape the occupation in tears around halftime, before the Germans razed the area in what was trumpeted as “the final solution to the FIFA problem.”
A Day of Historic Seconds
Shortly after the crushing defeat, local officials began reporting incidents of fighting, disturbances and isolated rioting that included setting buses ablaze. Some German officials worried for the safety of their players.
“It’s an oddly historic day,” confessed Helmut Riegemeister, one of the German squad managers. “It’s the second time in history that Brazil has lost the World Cup in its homeland, and it could be the second time in history that a group of Germans must hide out in Brazil for reasons of personal safety.”
Riegemeister confirmed, however, that the German government had made overtures of assistance to Brazil in the event of widespread civil unrest.
“As I understand it, Chancellor Merkel phoned President Dilma Rousseff and offered to set up containment and control procedures for any public disruptions, at Germany’s expense,” Riegemeister said. “We are very experienced at suppressing discord. If called upon, we are prepared to set up special compounds to hold offenders, establish train transportation to these camps, segregate sections of the city to protect the inhabitants and even build a giant wall, should it come to that.”
German Brazilians Conflicted About Loss
Despite the national shame and outpouring of grief, many second-generation Brazilians -- whose families had suddenly and inexplicably emigrated to South America from Germany in the late 1940s -- expressed having mixed feelings about the outcome.
Pedro Kriegsverbrecher, a 46-year-old appliance repairman who specializes in industrial ovens, said Germany’s defeat of Brazil left him emotionally conflicted.
“Like many of my friends and neighbors, I was born in Brazil but my family came here from Germany,” he explained. “They never told us why, they just said there had been some unpleasantness back home involving political disagreements. I feel as though I should join in mourning Brazil’s loss, and yet I also feel happy for my grandfather, Josef. He turned 103 this March and said that watching Germany’s triumphant conquest had restored his pride. Something about righting old wrongs.”
Kriegsverbrecher also noted that around 1974, his grandfather, a former doctor in Germany, had worked on an educational project to condition a select group of 94 boys from Brazil to become a physical, intellectual and genetically elite corps of men. The program was sabotaged, but its successful completion could have created a future generation of soccer players that would be impossible to defeat, according to statements made by Kriegsverbrecher’s grandfather.
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