Brazil's Record-Breaking Loss

Germany inflicted a historic 7-1 rout on Brazil on Tuesday to reach the World Cup final, running roughshod over the host country following a jaw-dropping match that marked manifold records.  

Brazil have never suffered such a big defeat in any international tournament and never put on such a shambolic defensive performance as during an 18 minute first half period when Germany scored four goals, three of them in just 179 seconds.

Thomas Mueller scored in the 11th minute, Klose after 23 to take his World Cup total to 16, Toni Kroos in the 24th and 26th minutes, Sami Khedira after 29 and substitute Andre Schuerrle in the 69th and 79th minutes. Oscar scored Brazil's goal in the 90th minute.

Miroslav Klose became the all-time leading scorer in the history of the tournament after netting his 16th goal in the competition in Germany's first-half semi-final rout of Brazil.

The 36-year-old, appearing in his fourth World Cup semi-final, put Germany well on course for Sunday's final in Rio de Janeiro after Thomas Mueller's early opener.

Klose had matched Brazilian legend Ronaldo's record of 15 World Cup goals when he scored the equaliser in Germany's 2-2 draw with Ghana in the group stages.

This is Klose's second goal-scoring record in just over a month after he broke Gerd Mueller's previous mark of 68 goals to become Germany's top scorer in a 6-1 pre-World Cup friendly win against Armenia.

By defeating Brazil, Germany became the first team to score seven goals in a World Cup semi-final.

On the other side of the scale, the epic semi-final game surpassed Brazil's worst-ever 6-0 defeat by Uruguay at the 1920 Copa America.

It was also Brazil's first home defeat in a competitive match since they lost 3-1 to Peru in the Copa America in 1975 and first-ever loss in any game since they were beaten 1-0 by Paraguay in 2002.

Brazil has become the third, along with Zaire and Haiti, to go into the halftime break losing by five or more goals. In fact, Brazil had once conceded 8 goals in a friendly loss to Yugoslavia in 1934.