Not strong enough

The Brazilian Under-20 team is finally out of the Fifa U-20 World Cup which is being played in Canada. The Brazilians, who barely qualified out of the first round with one win and two losses, lost to Spain 4-2 in extra time on Wednesday, in a second round game played in Burnaby, British Columbia.

It looked like the Brazilians would advance late in the first half, after Leandro and Alexandre Pato scored one minute apart, in the 39th and 40th minutes. Four minutes later, however, Pique netted an extremely important goal for the Europeans, which meant Spain trailed by only one goal at halftime instead of two - which would have been a much more difficult mental task to overcome going into the second half.

Despite the exciting finish to the first 45 minutes, however, the second half started on a slow pace, with very few scoring chances developing for both sides. When it looked like Brazil was headed to the quarterfinals, Javi Garcia tied the game on a free kick, with five minutes left in regulation.

The tired Brazilians proved they weren't strong enough in extra time, suffering one goal in the 103rd minute and another after the 120th minute, in injury time. Bueno and Adrian Lopez scored the two goals for Spain, which will now face the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals.

An end to a terrible competition by the Brazilians. When they arrived in Canada they were hailed as one of the tournament's favourites, coming off a second place finish in the last World Cup and traditionally fielding a good team at this level. It didn't take long for everyone to realize those expectations were misconceived. Just like the main Brazilian team one year ago at the World Cup in Germany, the boys never seemed to find their top form, and exit the tournament sooner than most fans would have thought or hoped for. One can only hope this will help the youngsters learn some valuable lessons about effort and consistency, which in turn can benefit them later in their careers.