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Mario Götze of Germany scored the game-winning goal in the second period of extra time. |
RIO DE JANEIRO — For years, Brazilians had a phrase they would inevitably utter when things went wrong. “Imagina na Copa,” they told one another after an endless traffic jam or a construction accident or an ugly rash of violence dominated the news — imagine if this happened during the World Cup. It was a foreboding warning, a pre-emptive sigh of the presumed disasters that lay ahead.