The World Cup in Brazil was great for me. Full of incident, shocks, open attacking football, and most of all…goals, goals and more goals.
Despite the pre-tournament doom and gloom about the way the event was organised, it’s gone better than expected. Here’s some of my highlights:
The good: Teams, except in some cases, have made every effort to play open and attacking football. There were also shocks galore as the likes of Costa Rica, Columbia and Algeria, all reached the knockout phase. Most of the matches throughout the tournament were very entertaining.
The bad: Holders Spain, for the last few years dominant in world football, were knocked out at the group stage, the first time that’s happened since France’s exit in 2002. Several other teams who were picked by the sports commentators to do well, like Italy for example, went out unexpectedly. ….and of course, there was England, who typically stank the place out. Many neutrals would have supported any of their opponents against them.
The ugly: mainly the Luis Suarez biting incident, and Neymar’s injury which ended his World Cup prematurely.
Germany were worthy winners when they beat Argentina in the final after extra time (I hadn’t thought of them as one of the favourites, but it was their thrashing of hosts Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final that swayed me).
Thanks for the show, Brazil…. and looking forward to Russia in 2018.