Farewell Brazil: A 2014 FIFA World Cup Review
Tim Groothuis/Witters Sport via USA TODAY Sports
The 2014 World Cup has been one of the best of the modern era, the best World Cup this side of the heroics of Maradona and Pele. It had twists and turns, upsets, destruction, heartbreak and triumph, it was perfect for the soccer fan new and old. It started off a little questionably with Brazil beating Croatia thanks to a good couple of dives and gullible officiating, but it was off to the races from there.
The highlight of the first games of group play was the USA finally beating longtime rivals Ghana thanks to the magical John Brooks header in the 87th minute, sparking hope the USMNT and its fans. Also in group G, eventual champions Germany decimated who was actually believed to be favorites by some people Portugal 4-0.
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Also in group play we saw the fall of a dynasty as Spain got destroyed by the Netherlands 5-1 which gave birth to Arjen Robben becoming the fastest player ever recorded, and Robin Van Persie becoming the literal version of a Flying Dutchman. Spain had such a stronghold over World Football but when it came to 2014, they were old, slow, predictable, and just not good enough. Iker Casillas, who is, or was a great keeper kept making mistake after mistake and Spain failed to adapt and make changes, such as going to David De Gea who was the best player at Manchester United the past year, and kept playing the older midfielders over the youth of the team.
We also saw England, Italy, and Portugal who normally are world powers, not even make it out of the group, we saw Portugal destroy the hopes and dreams of Americans nationwide after a stunning and heroic two goal comeback, and the Germans did German like things and advance out of the group relativity unharmed. In the knockout rounds we saw the Americans bow out of the cup thanks to Belgium, Colombia advanced thanks to the brilliance of James Rodriguez, and entertaining games all around.
Then came the quarterfinals. Colombia lost to Brazil thanks to a questionable offsides call and well horrible officiating throughout that saw Neymar almost become paralyzed as a result of horrid officiating where the game was basically a rugby game played with only their feet. The Netherlands advanced on Penalties, the Germans again were Germans and beat France in a rather uninspiring game, and Argentina beat Belgium.
The Semi-Final. Let’s just get the Argentina-Netherlands game out-of-the-way because it was won by Argentina on penalties, but no one really cares about that, because it was all about Germany’s absolute destruction of the World Cup hosts. It wasn’t fair. Germany put the difficulty to Semi-pro and just decimated everything that had to do with Brazil. The stretch between the 23rd and 29th minute saw 4 German goals after already being up by one. It was terrifying, horrific, and downright intimidating to watch. Brazil’s defense was so bad that it’s actually hard to call it defense. The Germans were so good that they pitied the host nation, they let up the second half and still scored two more goals. It was a complete and utter destruction.
The final saw Germany beat Argentina 1-0 after Mario Gotze scored in the last few minutes of the second period of extra time, and what also brought out the Leo Messi haters. Messi turned in a rather uninspiring game and in the last few seconds of the game Messi had a free kick in shooting range, it was going to be heroic, one of sport’s greatest moments, but Messi put it into the stands. Yet somehow, Messi still won the Golden Ball (The best Adidas player playing on a team that has Adidas kits winning a Golden Ball in a tournament sponsored by Adidas might I add) when he wasn’t even the best player on his team (Mascherano) let alone the tournament (Robben, Rodriguez, Lahm).
This World Cup was one for the ages, one that will be looked at years to come as the year that the Germans ruled all. Now, we wait for years for Russia, it cannot come sooner (Germany-USA final anyone?)