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Mexico celebrate their football victory over Brazil - Source: Reuters -
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Mexico left Brazil's long-cherished Olympic dream in tatters
again when they scored a stunning 2-1 upset win to clinch the men's
football title for the first time at Wembley Stadium today.
Brazil, the hot favourites and desperate to win the only major
soccer title to elude them, ended with the silver for the third
time after two goals from Oribe Peralta - the first after 28
seconds - sent them crashing to defeat.
Their players, who won all five matches scoring 15 goals on their
way to the final, looked utterly crestfallen on the victory podium
as their 60-year search for the Olympic gold, which looked certain
to end here, continues.
The result threatens the position of coach Mano Menezes, who is
also the coach of the senior side and hopes to be in charge when
Brazil host the World Cup in two years time.
Brazil's young side - the Olympics is essentially an Under-23
competition with three over age players allowed - were stunned by
Peralta's first minute goal which came after a mix-up between
Sandro and Rafael.
They never really got back into the match until after half-time
when the likes of Olympic poster boy Neymar, Oscar and Leandro
Damiao began to click.
That was largely because of the influence of Hulk, who replaced
Alex Sandro after 32 minutes and Brazil were an improved side after
the break.
But Mexico, who beat them in a friendly before the Olympics, were
never ruffled.
Even without their injured playmaker Giovani Dos Santos, they kept
their composure and doubled their lead when Peralta powered in
their second with a 75th minute header from a free-kick only
minutes after having a goal ruled out for offside.
They conceded late into added time when Hulk angled a shot home and
survived a header from Oscar soon after when he should have
equalised - but held on for Mexico's first gold of the London Games
and their first major international soccer title.
Their previous best Olympic performance was a fourth place finish
at the 1968 Mexico Games and their best World Cup performances came
in the two World Cups they hosted in 1970 and 1986 when they
reached the quarter-finals.
The attendance at Wembley of 86,162 was also the highest for any
event in these Games and took the total attendance for the men's
and women's tournaments to a staggering 2.18 million.
The only controversy of the afternoon went largely unnoticed by
most of those here though.
Only 17 South Korean players were on the podium from their 18-man
squad to collect their bronze medals after the IOC disqualified
Park Jong-woo for displaying a political banner after they beat
Japan 2-0 in the third-fourth playoff match at Cardiff on
Friday