World Cup 2018: Neymar's tears sum up the emotional and mental fragility of this Brazilian side

The maelstrom of tears at full-time lent weight to the theory that this is a squad whose emotional barometer is still not quite right

At full-time, the cameras sought out their man. It wasn’t Philippe Coutinho, who had won the match and saved the day for Brazil with his injury-time goal. It wasn’t Keylor Navas, whose magnificent saves had given Costa Rica hope, only to be denied at the last. No: needless to say, Neymar had had the last laugh. As the cameras homed in on him, Neymar sank to his knees and wept, lavishly and ostentatiously, and into the living rooms of millions. And that was just a group game against Costa Rica. Imagine if they actually get somewhere.

In a way, Neymar’s emotion was understandable. The mental toll of knocking patiently at the door for 90 minutes, aware that a failure to score would bring all sorts of tumultuous forces crashing down on their heads, had clearly affected them all. “A heart-stopper, in the Brazilian way,” said Gabriel Jesus afterwards. “I do not think anybody likes the way it was today. We knew that a bad result would complicate everything. But I knew the ball was going to go in sometime. I just did not know it would be so late.”

Still, this very public breakdown suggested that there was more on Neymar’s mind here than simply three points and passage out of Group E. He has, remember, only just returned to action after a foot injury suffered in February playing for Paris Saint Germain. For much of that time, he has wondered whether the world’s biggest football party might end up happening without him. Now, with his 97th-minute rainbow flick and injury-time goal, he was back in business.

“I told him to get it all out,” said his team-mate Thiago Silva. “Because he’s been carrying a lot of weight. It’s not easy to go three months without playing, but people don’t understand that. They keep criticising, hammering him. It's tough for us to fight against those who have the microphone. That kid has worked so hard to get here. It's only the second time he’s played 90 minutes after three months out, so of course he's feeling it.”

Ironically, Neymar’s goal - as perfunctory as it felt at the time - ended up putting Brazil top of the group, ahead of Switzerland on goal difference. But for all his centrifugal sense of occasion, it actually wasn’t his best game, as a stubborn Costa Rica defence closed down his space and forced him wide or backwards. He completed just three passes into the penalty area all game, saw cross after cross headed away, missed at least two good chances to put the game to bed well before Coutinho finally did.

But it was at least a more mature performance from him, and Brazil more generally. As the minutes ticked away, as Costa Rica continued to hold out, Brazil stuck admirably to their task, continuing to build attacks rather than trying to force them. Jesus again: “We know that when the teams come to Brazil, they always play very closed. To win, we need to play in a clever way. It starts from the back, with Alisson coming out with his feet, the defence working the ball through the middle, and the attack to follow on that work. We know it will be complicated.”

Brazil’s attacks depend very much on the triangles they create on either flank: Marcelo, Coutinho and Neymar on the left; Fagner, Paulinho and Willian on the right. At least, that’s how they started. Though Fagner, making his World Cup debut in place of Danilo, was extremely active, Willian was poor and withdrawn at half-time, and by full-time Paulinho had joined him on the bench. And if we learned anything from Brazil here, it was that they will not be a credible threat unless they provide a threat on both flanks. Only the introduction of Douglas Costa, and later Roberto Firmino, allowed Brazil to do so.

Equally, Brazil’s main strength can also be their weakness. It’s easily forgotten now, but in the first 20 minutes Costa Rica might even have been the better side: breaking with regularity, getting around the back of the Brazil defence, and fashioning two or three very good chances. A more cogent attacking force, prepared to commit numbers to transitions, will get a good deal of joy probing the spaces that Marcelo and Fagner leave behind when they advance.

All of which suggests that while Brazil may have a foot in the second round, they are still yet to reproduce their outstanding form of qualifying, or convince onlookers that they will be able to beat the first decent team they face. Added to which, the maelstrom of tears at full-time lent weight to the theory that this is a squad whose emotional barometer is still not quite right, whose tactical wind vane is still all too frequently directed towards their flamboyant talisman. It feels like Brazil are mentally emptying themselves every few days. And as we discovered four years ago, eventually that comes back to bite you.