Spain has done it! They have become the 8th country in the history of the World Cup to proudly boast a star on their roja shirts! I am very happy for Iniesta who scored the winning goal. First of all he proves wrong all those that think that you need to have a body builded corpulence to make it in football. Then I like this player’s style. He plays forward, knows when to pass the ball and when to keep it and is one of the rare confrontational dribblers out there. In my mind he was the best player of the final. Another decisive factor in Spain’s win was Fabregas’s entry. He brought fast forward movements to the Spanish side who I felt was sometimes playing too laterally with Xavi.
I was very disappointed by the Dutch. Where have they left their flamboyant football? It is now the second time that they leave a violent mark on the World Cup, the first time being the infamous eighth final against Portugal in 2006. The quatuor which I had thought could make the difference was unable to get sufficient ammunitions from the midfield and Van Persie was transparent.
Apart from the final, here is my take on this 19th World Cup:
- There were no new revolutionary or even marked evolutionary strategies.
- The first round was as non-Cup like as usual.
- I missed one single breathtaking game like Germany-Italy in 1970, Argentina-Peru in 1978, France-Germany in 1982, France-Brazil in 1986, England-Cameroon in 1990. The closest was probably Uruguay-Ghana for the incredible cliff-hanging suspense of that game.
- Talking about la Celeste, they can be very proud of their tournament. They often played great football like against Germany and Forlan deserves Fifa’s golden ball which rewards the best player of the tournament. They have some talented young players like Godin, Caceres and Suarez and who knows Forlan could still there be there to lead them in the 2014 World Cup if they qualify.
- The best team apart from Spain was in my mind Germany. The National Mannschaft often played with style, always looking to score and with some very promising players like Muller, Ozil, Khedira and a great Schweinsteiger. They will certainly be a favourite in 2014 with the second youngest German team of any World Cup so far.
- Amonst the big disapppointments were Italy, England and Argentina. Italy had too much of an ageing team and Liipi didn’t have enough time to blend the younger players with the older 2006 generation. England had a dismal defense and the midfiel cohabitation problems between Lampard and Gerrard. Rooney was absent. Finally Argentina lacked coaching skills, Maradona being unable to change tactics against Germany.
- The African teams should go back and play their style of game not the one imposed by foreign coaches. I felt they tried too often to emulate European football thereby forgetting about the natural strengths of creativity and coolness which are so characteristic of African football.
- Not even a disappointment but a shame was France. How can a team loose so much credit in these past years? There are many explanations to start with the coach and the French Football Federation who chose him from the job.
- Despite the Fifa claiming that the referees made 96% correct decisions, something needs to be done to help the men in black make the good judgements in the crucial money-time moments of the second round.
- When South Africa was awarded the World Cup organization, the naysayers around us promised havoc and violence. On the contrary, the organization was almost flawless and the atmosphere in and outside the stadiums was brilliant!
Now the World Cp is over and as they used to say in Royal France, “le roi est mort, vive le roi”! I will right now set the time counter at the top of this blog to start counting the days until the 20th World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Remember, I promised my sons that we would be in the Maracana for the final, perhaps another Maracanazo !?
Maracanazos are already learning to dance the samba!
I think that there was a specific strategy put in place by Spain : they went head on into the opposite team’s defenses to attract several players and then passed the ball backwards to a team member. The defending team having been pushed into an area, the attacking team had lots of room to move around and so they did, going round the defense and eventually scoring. It was quite clear that this was a strategyplanned ahead.
Not so much about Brazil…))
Antonio, yes I didn’t talk too much about Brazil. I guess because they went through the tournament in a ghost-like way, neither raising too many criticisms or support. I thought they played dry and effective football but without the necessary stamina to make it to the top.