It feels right that Germany beat Argentina this morning. The best team at this year’s tournament has lifted the best looking trophy in world sport at the best country for a World Cup. Nice work them.
This was a decent final won by a memorable goal but won’t Gonzalo Higuain be Gonzalo Higuain’s worst nightmare for the rest of his life? That was a shocker of a miss. I’d hate to be inside his head because the voices would be frightening.
Read MoreEuropean efficiency wins out over South American I don’t know what. We’re not talking about the final yet, of course, just Brazil’s decent from football icons to grubby also-rans.
My first memory of Brazil was their magnificent side from 1982. The names roll off the tongue: Zico, Eder, Falcao, Junior and, the magnificent Socrates. That was a side.
Read MoreToday was a travelling day for me, and a bloody miserable one at that.
I headed north to meet the family who have been up at the in-laws since Thursday. It’s the school holidays and we’ve had to be a bit creative to keep the boys under control. Creative, for me, has meant a little break while Jean has had to manage the kids. She’s done well, with the help of her parents.
Read MoreAnd then we had the Netherlands versus Argentina.
It wasn’t exactly a classic, was it? I guess it was made to look even worse by what went on yesterday. Maybe the teams made it worse themselves having seen what happened. I dunno.
Technically, it wasn’t a bad game of football. It’s just that the stars were the defensive players or rather the coaching staff who got their systems right to the point where each team cancelled the other out. The excitement was strangled out of the game.
Read MoreIt’s been a whole day since semi-final number one finished and, like pretty much everyone I guess, I still struggle with what happened this morning. Brazil 1. Germany 7. In the Semi-Final of the World Cup. In Brazil. In a day and age where no-one gets hammered like that. Brazil hadn’t lost a competitive match at home since 1975 apparently. That’s nearly a life time. Nearly my lifetime! All sorts of crazy stats have...
Read MoreFIFA did well to schedule the final stages of the World Cup with the school holidays, but I’d have preferred if they’d started a couple of weeks later so we had games every morning. The last couple of days have been murder trying to get work done in a house with two young boys going at it from sun up to after sun down. I work from my home office most days and it usually works well, but it’s a full house at the moment with the boys...
Read MoreAre we there yet? Nearly son. Just four team are left and we have a couple of potential classic semi-finals in store for us during the week. Yep, there’s that ‘P’ word. Now the stakes are so high I’d be very surprised if we see an open end-to-ender in either of the semis, but you never know. This World Cup has had a few surprises for us so maybe that’s something else we have to look forward to. Today was...
Read MoreToday we had two quarter-finals that were similar yet quite different. In both games the favourites won and went ahead early from set-pieces nudged home by centre-halves. Then they stayed in front to the end. The matches were very different, though, most noticeably the atmospheres at the venues. It was all very civilised at the Maracana with the fans enjoying their afternoon out in the sun. Well those who returned from half time did,...
Read MoreIt was nice to have one sleep in but two in a row? In the middle of the World Cup?! What’s up with that? Thankfully we’re back into it tomorrow with the first of two quarter-final days and wouldn’t you just know it… we have one final term 2 session of mini-kickers football in the morning, which is going to cut right across the Brazil v Colombia match. No sweat, you might say, just tape it and watch it after....
Read MoreSo we’re down to the final eight and, after all the drama of the last four days the favoured teams, without fail, have made it through. Today’s matches were far from routine, but they did give us more info about both Argentina and Belgium. Argentina really battled to get past the Swiss, leaving it till late in extra time. I think four games is enough to get a good picture of a side and in none of their four games has...
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