Despite that, the temperature of the game continued to rise in the second half, and again, it was Brazil doing most of the stoking. David Luiz blatantly tripped Cuadrado in the first minute after intermission (Velasco Carballo missed it). Fernandinho slyly pushed Adrián Ramos into the sign boards behind the end line as the two chased a ball that was undoubtedly going out of play anyway.

In all, Brazil committed nine of the first 11 fouls in the second half, hacking and pounding on the Colombians despite already holding a 1-0 lead. It was not hard to predict that at some point, Brazil’s top star, Neymar, would become a target.

It was in the 57th minute, though, when the match began to boil over. The Colombians had continued to mostly sit back and take the punishment, but they were clearly infuriated when Silva crushed Ramos from behind as he went toward a ball. Velasco Carballo, again, declined to whistle a foul. The Colombians’ ire was raised even more 10 minutes later when the referee showed a yellow card to Rodríguez — who was apoplectic at the decision — for an innocuous trip that was, as Rodríguez vociferously pointed out with multiple hand gestures, a first offense compared with Fernandinho’s harrying.

“I think the referee influenced the game a lot,” Rodríguez said afterward.

He was being kind. Velasco Carballo’s role in the ugliness cannot be minimized. A Spaniard, he is known as a high-level official, but it seemed clear that he was determined to avoid using cards to control the players. That decision backfired, particularly as it related to Fernandinho; instead of giving the players a comfort level to play more freely early on, his lenience served as an elastic band on the game, encouraging the players, especially the Brazilians, to try to see just how much contact they could get away with on Rodríguez without being punished.

It was a poor miscalculation from Velasco Carballo, and one he compounded by neglecting to adjust as the game progressed. His culpability is impossible to ignore.