Five-time World Champions Brazil moved one step closer to winning their first Olympic gold medal as they beat Central Americans Honduras by a margin of six goals to none.
The captain of the Olympic team, Neymar, started the match with a bang as he stole the ball from an opposition defender and bundled it over the line after just 15 seconds had passed on the clock. This was the fastest goal ever in an Olympic match.
Neymar would add one more to his tally as new Manchester City signing and wonderkid Gabriel Jesus scored two. Luan Garcia and Marquinhos chipped in with goals as well as the Brazilians thronged to the stadium to see their heroes play after having booed them initially.
But the hosts will be wary as they have been in this situation before; they had made the final in London fully expecting to beat Mexico with a team led by Neymar and boasting the talents of Alexandre Pato, Leandro Damiao, Hulk and Oscar.
They were beaten by Mexico 2-1 on the night and lost out, just as they had done in the World Cup semi-finals in 2014. That had been one of the worst nights for Brazilian football as the Maracana, also the stage for the Olympics final on August 20, had witnessed one of the most one-sided semi-finals in World Cup history, with Germany swatting aside the hosts 7-1.
Brazil have a chance to exact some measure of revenge as their opponents in Saturday's final will be the ones responsible for their misery two years ago, the reigning world champions Germany.
The Germans overcame Nigeria 2-0 in Sao Paulo as Lukas Klostermann gave the world champions an early lead.
They defended from then on, but proceeded to create some chances of their own before Nigeria cranked up the pressure in the second half.
But the game was wrapped up a minute before the end of normal time. Nils Petersen grabbed his sixth goal of the tournament as he tied another German, Serge Gnabry, at the top of the scoring charts.
The only time that a team from Germany had won gold was in 1976, when East Germany had beaten Poland in the final, before the re-unification of Germany had taken place.
The Results
- Brazil 6 (Neymar x 2, Gabriel Jesus x 2, Luan Garcia, Marquinhos) beat Honduras 0
- Nigeria 0 lose to Germany 2 (Lukas Klostermann, Nils Petersen)
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