Luiz Felipe Scolari pleads for forgiveness after Brazil thrashing

Luiz Felipe Scolari has begged for forgiveness from Brazil’s supporters after the hosts’ 7-1 semi-final thrashing by Germany dumped them out of the World Cup.

Brazil’s stars have struggled to find an explanation for the stunning #WorldCup semi scoreline-http://t.co/mNZ0MI5ODL pic.twitter.com/CFoSMVetb9

— FIFAWorldCup (@FIFAWorldCup) July 9, 2014

Germany scored five times in the first half as they capitalised on some woeful Brazil defending to book their place in Sunday’s final against either Argentina or the Netherlands.

And the Brazil boss was quick to take full responsibility for the humiliating result.

“It’s the worst day of my life,” Scolari said . “We ask for forgiveness for the result and we thank the fans for their support even during this defeat.

“I am responsible for the catastrophic result. I made the choices. I am responsible. After the first goal went in we became disorganised and after that it was one goal after another. There was no time to change anything.

“This is a loss of catastrophic proportions, it’s the worst loss in our history, but we have to learn how to deal with it.”

The 65-year-old also refused to blame the absence of the injured Neymar as a major factor in the defeat.

“Neymar is one of the team, but he is a striker and he wouldn’t have helped us defend those moves,” he said. “There’s no reason to think it would have been different with Neymar.

“Let’s not try to find an excuse with Neymar. What happened is that Germany imposed themselves in a few moments which defined the match. Germany made use of those moments and it’s nothing to do with Neymar.”