The game of the year is not necessarily the best game of the year. In 2014, the one that belongs in the time capsule was a historic rout, a game and a scenario you won’t forget — or, if you are Brazilian, a game and a scenario you won’t be able to forget.

Germany’s 7-1 victory over Brazil in the World Cup semifinals in Belo Horizonte was both stunning and humiliating, the first time that the Brazilians had lost a competitive match at home since 1975. It was a perfectly timed, perfectly weighted blow to the national psyche that also left eyes wide open worldwide.

Even before the game began, Brazilians surely had concluded that this version of the Seleção was no remake of the 1970 wonder team that included Pelé, Rivelino and Jairzinho and won the World Cup in Mexico. Nor on par with the country’s other four World Cup-winning squads. Before the semifinal, this version of the Seleção was clearly diminished, with Neymar, its star forward, out with an injury and Thiago Silva, its captain and key central defender, suspended.

But there is a thick line between probable defeat and total destruction. And who inside or outside Brazil could have imagined that the home team was capable of producing a flop of this magnitude, losing by the largest margin ever in a World Cup semifinal?