In addition to facing five-time champions Brazil in today’s FIFA World Cup semi-final, Germany will also have to contend with a voodoo priest who plans to curse the Mannschaft.
Brazil will be without injured superstar Neymar in Belo Horizonte’s Estadio Mineiro, but black magic enthusiast Helio Sillman from Rio de Janeiro says his curse will hinder Joachim Loew’s team in the semi-final.
“I’ll take their top player and bind his legs so he can’t run on the pitch,” Sillman said, referring to the voodoo doll of an undisclosed Germany player who is to be cursed in a ceremony before the game.
In his shop, “World of Orixas,” in Rio’s northern Madureira neighborhood, Sillman carries out a ritual before each Selecao game.
Using a a small soccer pitch-shaped box as his altar, he puts inside lit candles in the colors of the opposing team and the voodoo doll of their most important player.
Sillman’s curse on James Rodriguez did not stop the Colombia star from scoring in his team’s 2-1 defeat to Brazil in Friday’s quarter-finals and he was powerless to prevent Neymar from suffering a fractured vertebrae against Los Cafeteros that has ruled him out of the tournament.
However, Sillman points to Brazil’s results against Cameroon, Chile, Croatia and Mexico as testimony to the influence of his magic.
“Those are the four teams that Brazil have overcome,” he said.
Germany’s Thomas Mueller, Manuel Neuer and Mats Hummels have been warned.
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