World Cup 2014: Finally It's All Over

The World Cup is finally over and how did my predictions go? Well, it wasn’t a Brazil vs Spain final, was it? Spain imploded in their first game and Brazil never looked convincing until, of course, the semi-final where they fell apart disastrously losing 7-1 to a German side that were on auto-pilot in the second half. To put that in context, during qualification Germany only beat the Faroe Islands 3-0. What puzzles me is how the Brazilians managed to beat Columbia.

I’d stand by my comments of the Germans not having had the best preparations. They looked better at the last World Cup for the most part. However, where they have previously dazzled only to be let down by a few simple mistakes, this time they have managed to grind out the results when needed and that largely includes the final. Argentina’s tactic throughout has been to park the bus in front of goal and hope that Messi can create something at the other end – a tactic that had largely worked up until the semis when they were forced to go to penalties against the Dutch.

Messi was awarded the player of the tournament accolade which did rather raise a few eyebrows. Personally, I would have gone for James Rodriguez or Bastian Schweinsteiger but I think this tournament has been as much about outstanding goalkeeping performances as it has anything else so maybe Manuel Neuer or Tim Howard would have been a better choice? I suspect that the Messi choice may have been more to do with his, and the accolades, sponsors but many in the media have been very dismissive of Messi – he has been one of the hardest working players on the pitch and if he looks shattered then there is a very good reason for that.

Overall this World Cup has been highly enjoyable and certainly one of the better ones in the last 20 years (the USA in 1994 was pretty good as well). What has come out from this is that football is still very much a team game. To quote a popular internet meme: Brazil have Neymar, Agentina have Messi, Portugal have Ronaldo but Germany have a team.