Neymar left the home fans in ecstasy as he arrowed home the fifth and final penalty to give Brazil a 6-5 victory over Germany after both sides could not be separated in 120 minutes. The scoreline after extra time stood at 1-1. The host took the lead in 27th minute from a superbly taken free-kick by Neymar only to see that lead cancelled out in the 59th minute as Max Meyer turned in a cross from Jeremy Toljan.
Both sides scored their first four penalties. Then Wéverton produced a save to deny Nils Petersen. The script couldn't have been written better as Neymar stepped up and scored handing Brazil their first Olympic Soccer Gold Medal. Brazil for all its prowess had never won an Olympic gold. To realise this dream, Neymar had to forfeit playing in the Copa Centenario - that's how much it meant to the Brazil. This victory would to an extent ameliorate the pains inflicted by the losses in The Maracana to Uruguay (1950) and Germany (2014)


P.S. It's been a year of breaking Jinx. Germany broke theirs against Italy. France did the same to Germany and Portugal to France. Leicester broke a jinx (Not since Blackburn in 1995 had any middleweight team won the EPL). Now Brazil have broken theirs beating the otherwise reliable penalty kings, Germany.

And just like Portugal in Euros, the lesson is the same - it's not how you start that matters but how you end.