The blame game: Why complaints from Brazil's football federation jar with Tite's calls for accountability

Not for the first time, Galvão Bueno spoke for the more excitable, more parochial subsection of Brazil's fanbase. The 67-year-old commentator, still rolled out like heavy artillery for big games by the all-powerful Globo network, has always been a bellwether when it comes to the national team, his yelps both reflecting and shaping public opinion.

Of the 56 million Brazilian TV sets tuned in to the Seleção's game against Switzerland on Sunday, 79% were set to Globo. That is a sizeable constituency even before you consider the whole-families-crowding-round-one-screen factor, and so when Galvão (he's big enough a star to be known mostly by his first name) began to steam over Steven Zuber's equalising goal, the national temperature rose in kind.

"Video refereeing is going to mess up this World Cup," he hollered, before flirting with cheap conspiracy theory: "They've already helped France and now they've disadvantaged Brazil." In no time at all, some of the neurotic corners of Brazilian Twitter were buzzing with talk of 'robbery' and anti-South-American bias.

Read my latest piece for The Athletic, on the chasm between Brazil's coach and his federation, here.