"Historic Disgrace" read the massive headline on the website of the Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil’s most influential newspaper.
Brazil is the only country to win the World Cup five times but the paper pointed out this was not just their biggest loss but the heaviest suffered by a host nation at the finals.
"Brazilian football was reduced to dust," said main sports columnist Juca Kfouri, adding that Brazil was now one of two nations to have hosted and lost the World Cup twice.
The Folha website had a picture of Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari signalling to a player with seven fingers aloft and reproduced a gallery of crying fans.
The globoesporte website, part of the Globo media empire, called the result the 'Disgrace of Disgraces', in an ironic reference to President Dilma Rousseff’s repeated claims – and tweets - that this would be the World Cup of all World Cups.
The hashtag they chose instead was #I Can’t Believe it.
O Globo, the flagship paper of the Rio empire, preferred to lead with the words of Scolari, who told reporters that he accepted the blame for the result.
"I'm responsible for all this," was the paper's headline.
(Reporting by Andrew Downie; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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