ENJOYABLE WORLD CUP 2014

The World Cup is over and I think most, if not all who watched, would have been satisfied. We got the most goals ever, we got drama, but most importantly, we got a good final.

I was hoping for a Brazil versus Argentina final because this was South America and a European team had, prior to Sunday, never won a World Cup in South America. In fact, prior to 2010 a European team had never won the Cup outside their continent. I was hoping that trend would have continued this time around but from the very outset one got the feeling that this FIFA World Cup was going to be a little bit different.

In 1990 football has almost come to a  screeching halt. Teams played like they were playing in molasses and goals were scarce. There were only 115 goals scored in that Cup that was held in Italy. Goals were scored at a rate of 2.21 per match in a tournament that the Germans won in a controversial 1-0 triumph over Argentina in what was otherwise a forgettable final. The man people remember from that final was the Mexican referee. That was how bad it was.  The Germans have won again, again 1-0 over Argentina but this time the final was a lot more memorable, a lot more representative of the kind of tournament it was.

The group stage was exciting, perhaps the most exciting yet. It demonstrated what many had begun to suspect. There are no minnows in world football anymore. Well, perhaps Jamaica but we don’t have proper systems in place to consistently produce quality players. No academies, no high quality coaches and playing surfaces, no academies; nothing. However, I digress.

So there were no minnows but instead of teams being cagey, we got good attacking football, fast-paced games with end-to-end action. There would be no Hungary hammering El Salvador 10-1 in Group 3 as we saw in 1982. but we had a 7-1, a 5-1 and a 5-2 but those were unlikely scorelines when you consider the teams involved. Brazil/Germany, Netherlands/Spain and France/Switzerland. There were however competitive matches between Netherlands and Australia (3-2), Germany and Ghana (2-2) Germany and the USA (1-0), and Brazil and Mexico (0-0). Those who complained that a match cannot be exciting if it ends nil-all needed to have seen that Brazil/Mexico game.

Besides the competitiveness we also had the drama of the massive demonstrations over the host countries wasteful spending leading up to the first ball being kicked,  Luis Suarez taking a bite out of Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder and an unexpected implosion of the home team, and as I mentioned prior, a high-quality final that either team could have won but in the end German efficiency won the day. The profligate Argentinians will be kicking themselves knowing that they blew a great opportunity to win a third title, their first since 1986 but goals win matches and they didn’t get the ones needed.

It was an enjoyable experience, perhaps the best one yet. We can only hope Russia in four years’ time would be half as good.