Brazil 2014 Winners!!!

To say that Brazil 2014 is the best World Cup tournament of the modern era may sound subjective, but there is no arguing against its entertainment value. Given how much effort FIFA has put into developing the game to allow more goals to be scored, they can celebrate this tournament as the most successful in history given that it had the highest number of goal scorers and tied France 1998 for most goals scored. More fitting though, for the first time since 2002, the Champions were the most offensive team, defeating the sometimes dulling sports cliché, “defense wins Championships”.

CONGRATULATIONS GERMANY!!! Despite winning Euro 1996 as unified Germany, German football generally seemed to lose its way with the collapse of the Berlin wall. Humiliating defeats at World Cup 1998, Euro 2000 and Euro 2004 forced a grass roots effort to revive success for this footballing power house. In the 2006 World Cup with Germany as host nation, the revolution begun as they delivered a group of younger-technical players and an adventurous style of play that was such a breath of fresh air. How fitting that after the agonizingly near misses of World Cup 2006, Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012, Germany is rewarded with the first European nation World Cup triumph on South American soil!

The South American hosts were hoping to exorcise the one blemish on their football record, “failure to win the previous World Cup they hosted in 1950”. So united were the Brazilians in this goal that the multitudes demonstrating in the build up to this World Cup put their cause on hold, as the nation cheered the Seleção with one loud and passionate voice. It is argued that it is this passion that led to their annihilation at the hands of the eventual World Champions but the Brazilians may have more to celebrate than staging a very successful World Cup. It would have been even more painful had Argentina, their bitter South American rivals, triumphed on Brazilian soil like Uruguay did more than a half century ago.

Argentina however deserves a lot of credit for a disciplined performance that led them to the periphery of winning the tournament, despite appearing to be overly reliant on one star player. Winning the Golden Ball award for the best player in the tournament may be scanty reward for Lionel Messi, but it may cause a rethink by those Argentina fans that questioned his commitment to the national team. Messi and Netherlands’ Arjen Robben are two players that kept us on the edge of our seats with their jaw dropping skill, and gave football fans the moments that they will remember Brazil 2014 by.

Congratulations to James Rodriguez for winning the Golden boot for the tournament’s top scorer. He and his Colombian team mates will also stick in memory for the way they celebrated each goal by performing a brief choreographed salsa dance.

Costa Rica the tournament’s Cinderella team deserves an honorable mention for the way they stood up to more illustrious opponents, making it all the way to the quarter finals without losing a game in regulation time. Congratulations to CONCACAF for a record three teams making it to the knock out stages and for their breathtaking goal keeping displays. Africa despite a generally disappointing tournament also celebrated taking two teams to the knock out stages for the first time in history.

Of course the infamous Suarez-bite and African team strikes for unpaid bonuses attempted to throw some blemish into the mix but FIFA deserves credit for the way it has addressed these. For all the corruption and imprudent statements that have scarred their leadership, it is surprising that FIFA responded quickly and decisively to Suarez’s animalistic tendencies and are at least discussing a solution to the constant bonus-saga that encumbers African teams. With Brazil 2014 now behind us, it may leave a legacy of the tournament when FIFA and Brazilian football finally begun to get their act together. Brazil’s humiliating defeat is likely to force the kind of system overhaul that their conquerors had to go through almost a decade ago, and this pain will hopefully make Brazilian football stronger.