David Luiz may well be ready to face Germany tonight, but it will take a gargantuan effort from Brazil to make their eighth World Cup final.

Injury to star turn Neymar, and suspension to captain Thiago Silva, has seen hopes of banishing the nightmare of 1950 begin to fade as the Selecao take on the strongest European team in the tournament.

Neymar represents the one link this Brazil have to their glorious past, and although Luiz Felipe Scolari is not the first Selecao coach to take a pragmatic approach, he is the first to do it with so few genuine match-winners.

Willian is the most likely man to replace the Barcelona forward, but while talented, neither he nor his Chelsea colleague, Oscar, have shown an ability to take control of a game quite like Neymar.

The fear then is that Brazil resort to the sort of tactics that have seen them this far.

While they played some of their best football against Colombia in the quarter-final, it was allied with plenty of rough stuff.

Scolari’s men committed 31 fouls in the last eight tie, a tournament high, while the second most was their tally of 28 in their penalty shootout win over Chile.

In that light, hysteria generated over Juan Zuniga’s challenge on Neymar seems a little hypocritical when compared to the punishment dished out to James Rodriguez by Fernandinho, for example.

But while, to a degree, Colombia could be bullied, Brazil should know they cannot kick Germany out of any game.

Die Mannschaft are made of sterner stuff, players like Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos will take their punishment and keep coming.

Germany are a much more confident side than Colombia, they expect to be at this stage of the competition and play with an innate belief that they will win every match they play.

Since a lopsided win over Portugal in their first game, Joachim Low’s side have not overwhelmed but they have got the job done.

This is a team that knows how to win and if Brazil play as recklessly as they did in the first half against Colombia – where they piled forward without any shape or structure – then they will do exactly that.

It has been said that Brazil are playing with the hopes of 200 million people on their shoulders. If that’s true, it will take a lot more than a rallying cry from Luiz to prevent a national catastrophe tonight.