Okay...so this
is how things are going to go in this blog…Pretty much anything football ,
games opinions , shocking ref decisions , bad offside calls , transfers coach
and manager choices , squad selections , keeper blunders…Like I said pretty
much anything football. If there is anything from either of my posts that you
feel I have left out. This is not a factual blog so I would like to hear every
body’s opinions and point of views.
Now that we
have that out the way, I would like to bring up the 2014 FIFA World Cup as I am
sure any body that is even remotely into football watched at least one of the
games that were played. Let’s start with the hosts, Brazil, now even though
they were earmarked as the favorites of the tournament they were never really
convincing enough to win the entire tournament, they relied too much on one
player, namely Neymar, yes he is a brilliant player but at the age of only 22
you cannot expect him to win the tournament by himself win the competition for
Brazil, which brings me to my next point, Thiago Silva in my opinion one of the
best if not the best center back the world has ever seen, once again Brazil put
a bit too much pressure on him to do a bit too much and didn’t work as a team.
It baffles my mind how the squad selectors for the Brazilian team would choose
players such as Jo and Fred, who you barely hear about throughout the season
instead of choosing players like Lucas Moura and Philipe Coutinho, who could
possibly not have proved any more that they deserve to be in the squad more
than the fore-mentioned players. However the proof is in the pudding and the Brazilian fans proved me right when they proceeded to “Boo” Fred off the pitch
in their 3rd-4th place play-off game against the Dutch.
The Dutch –
Where to even start with this team of superstars and up and coming superstars,
they could not have had a better start to their campaign when they thrashed
Spain 5-1, the football that was played by Holland was purely second to none,
it’s pretty obvious though that if you play “Spanish” type football against the
Spanish they are for lack of a better word “Clueless”. Some might argue that
this is just the end of an era, I beg to differ however Spain is not a bad team
in the least all they are lacking is a plan B so to speak. They have played the
same type of football for a bit too long now and as the Dutch have proved they
can be torn apart by just keeping it simple.
On to the
Germans, many people mentioned to me that they are the ones that are going to
win football’s greatest prize, I argued with them saying that they always make
it to the knock-out stages and then fall short, they quickly made me eat my
words when they cruised through the tournament unbeaten, making every game look
like they were having a simple training session. Which brings me to my next
point, the Germans are possibly the only team that played in the 2014 FIFA
World Cup that actually played as a team and moved as a unit on the pitch, Not
relying on certain players, they each had a role to play and played it to
absolute perfection hence them becoming the 2014 World Cup winners. All I can
say about the Germans, teamwork personified.
As World Cups go there are always those
“special” players/youngsters that outshine the rest, in this case this kid was
not from any of the big teams but from a small South American country called
Columbia his name none other than James Rodriguez. This boy not really
well-known in the footballing world before the World Cup, outshone the stars
that everybody was there to see, scoring the goal of the World Cup and winning
the competitions golden boot award this boys work rate was absolutely
unbelievable, no surprise that he has been snatched up by one of the world’s
biggest clubs, Real Madrid, no doubt that he is one for the future and Los
Blancos will make sure of that.
Onto the
keepers, strange topic, I know but we cannot ignore how well the keepers played
for their nations and have certainly put prices on their own heads, the one
keeper that stood out for me the most was that of Guillermo Ochoa, who took the
gloves for Mexico and made that position his own, if he does not get signed by
a big club for the 2014/2015 season I wouldn’t even know what to tell you all
but to me he was definitely the keeper of the tournament.
Would just
like to thank you all for taking the time to read this blog there will be more
to come from the upcoming season, stay tuned…
Ty (Li’l
Brown)
