Living room scene: How (some) Brazilians watched their team get destroyed by Germany

Volume up, lights down. A fairly typical family in Rio de Janeiro state settles down to watch the game.

The scene is being repeated all over the country: it is 4pm but when Brazil play 200 million people down tools and head home or to a bar. They even declare a half-day public holiday to make it official.

The game is on almost every channel. Of course it is: this is the biggest game in Brazil since 1950. We opt for Globo, not because its coverage is the best (it's definitely, definitely not) or because, on such occasions, when history is to be made one way or the other, it feels appropriate to do what everyone else is doing. The power of shared experience, or something.

Read the rest of this piece on the Yahoo! Eurosport site.