A 4-0 victory should be celebrated.

Only the invincible prejudice against the popular universe of Brazilians explains the difficulty many people have in celebrating a victory like the 4-0 win over Denmark yesterday.

Although my first dream job was to be a football player, my daily life is far removed from stadiums. I don't remember the last time I left home to watch a game, and I rarely have the energy to spend a full 90 minutes in front of the TV.

If you ask me the starting lineup for today's Brazilian national team, I won't be able to name the goalkeeper correctly. I can remember the entire Santos team from the 1960s, but of course we're talking about one of those unforgettable trophies that reveal adolescent memory rather than real knowledge.

But I have enough experience to understand that football is deeply ingrained in Brazilian culture. With all its mysteries, both obvious and hidden—many accessible only to those who have tried to learn the marvelous art of controlling a ball with their feet—a performance by the national team can be as sublime as, I don't know, a song by Chico Buarque.

I belong to a generation that, resisting the military dictatorship, even rooted against the national team in the 1970 World Cup. The motivation was justified, but we were wrong.

The national team, especially that one, was a symbol of the Brazil of Brazilians, temporarily usurped by generals who went to the stadiums during the day and commanded torture at night. In any case, it was too great to be treated as the private property of a spurious regime.

This was the true emotion of yesterday's victory. In a country going through one of the most difficult moments in its history, with so many shadows and doubts ahead, the 4-0 score was a reaction against a massacre, against an unjust fate and ominous threats. It showed that it is possible to overcome difficulties so great that they seem insurmountable, difficulties that are not limited to what happens on the pitch, and that may be closer than one imagines.

It is the symbolic, the symbolic!, that supposedly cultured people have great difficulty understanding when it does not involve their own symbols.

In Brazil in 2016, many things remain out of place. The main ones, such as employment, wages, freedom, and democracy.

It's worth remembering that they even tried to reinstate censorship, prohibiting people from shouting "Out with Temer!" for the whole world to hear. They were ashamed of what is shameful. And it's telling that the prohibition started in stadiums, with the typically AI-5 excuse that they are places to talk about sports, not politics.

The resounding victory of a team that took to the field under threat of elimination in the first round of an Olympics held in its own country shows that no adversity is insurmountable.

Bearing in mind that the first effort of a tyranny consists of creating a population of frightened, defeated citizens, the landslide victory is a value in itself. It deserves to be celebrated.