World Cup Finale

Yesterday Spain made history by winning the World Cup for the first time in their checkered sporting history. Fortunately for all the viewers the final game was most definitely the emotionally-charged event that it was expected to be. Now that the month long event is over, we should ask ourselves, ‘Was the entire event the emotionally-charged, quality tournament that should be expected from the World Cup?’ I think a variety of factors caused the cup to be less competitive than it should have been.

First of all, the lead up to the World Cup affected how the tournament played out. There were many teams hyped as good that in reality weren’t more than straw houses. For starters, the African teams showed their traditional weaknesses and did not perform. A combination of injuries and weak midfields created a disaster for the African challengers. Unfortunately, their star players (most of them star strikers, such as Eto’o and Drogba) were surrounded by players of significantly lesser-quality. The surprising country, in my opinion, was Ghana. Gyan and company made it the furthest of any African nation in the tournament, despite having the “weakest” team. Secondly, the marginal teams really did appear marginal. Sometimes there are surprises that make it through to the semi-finals, but that did not happen this year. True, some of the big favorites did not leave the group stages, but the teams that progressed far were most definitely traditional soccer powerhouses. The main straw houses (and I had predicted this at the outset of the tournament) were: England, Italy and France. England, with the exception of 4 players (Gerrard, Lampard, Terry and Rooney) is a crap team; Italy is more of a geriatric club; and France was a psychiatric ward (in between the underage prostitute drama, the lack of coaching and the anger management issues).

During the WC many FIFA decisions affected the quality of the tournament. While I think the first week of refereeing actually began well, the quality soon crashed to horrible levels. Goals were not called, linesmen were asleep, and the Jabulani ball became a super villain!

Brazil played horrendous, disastrous soccer. Because of that a major force of beautiful and competitive soccer was lacking. Dunga’s “efficient system” was shown for what it really is: a scam. Efficiency in soccer can be important in certain ways (attacking efficiently), but when defensive soccer rules, and Brazil can easily be mistaken for English soccer you know that a travesty is occurring.

Enough of the negatives. There were some highlights: Uruguay and Chile put Latin American soccer on the map. Chile played beautiful offensive soccer, and Uruguay played smart defensively with moments of offensive brilliance. Argentina, for all the drama Maradona brought out, really played beautiful soccer until the Germany game. And Paraguay showed their true potential (I will admit that Argentina is to thank for much of this- coach, players, style, etc.). Spain was weak most the tournament, but was true to their style. Germany was brilliant in my opinion. They showed what a team full of young, offensive and ambitious players can do.

In the end, I think that justice was served. Spain emerged victorious. Only an Argentine victory would have satisfied me more. Now I hope the 7 starting Roja players come back to Barca and win everything this year again!