Kevin Whitcher
So it’s over for another four years. World Cups mark time in a life and with the conclusion of every one, I always feel the sands of time have shifted a bit further. I watched the final last night on BBC with my son, who is young enough to only remember watching one previous final.
Since Argentina last won the trophy in Mexico in 1986, there have been seven further finals. Only one of them has featured more than two goals (France 3 Brazil 0 in 1998). Four have featured a solitary goal or less. The tendency now is for them to be very tight affairs. Top level football in which chances are rare.
However, yesterday, Argentina, based on chances, should undoubtedly have won. Yes, Howedes hit the post from a set piece header. But the opportunities passed up by Higuain, Messi and in extra time, Palacio, were as clear as a team will get in a final of this nature. Gotse’s chance was far more difficult, but taken with aplomb. I wrote earlier in the tournament that composure at the key moments is what would determine the winners, and so it proved.
When these two sides last met in the final match, in 1990, Germany won 1-0 in a pretty terrible game settled by a penalty kick, with two Argentinians red carded. It was a poor spectacle in comparison with the match at the Maracana, which at least saw both teams genuinely try to win the game, unlike the semi between Argentina and Holland four days previously.
Although Argentina were only behind in a match for the first time in the tournament in the second period of extra time, they had got where they were, for the most past, by playing survival football rather than offering anything that excited much, with the exception of Messi’s runs. It is untrue to call them a one man team, but unquestionably their captain’s contribution was the reason they progressed to the final. That he was awarded the best player of the tournament award was a little strange, given he had been running on empty since the group stage.
Germany proved the best team and were deserved winners. Sadly, we saw a slightly ugly side to them at times in the final – theatrics, some cynical tackles – but this was no different from Argentina. Given this, I was thankful there was a bit of football too. Despite the lack of goals, it was a decent match. There was enough incident, enough moments of quality, and tension.
One of my travelling companions from the trip, Adam, had managed to secure a ticket for the final and flew back out for the game. We had checked out where he would be sitting after we had seen Colombia beat Uruguay in the Maracana, and I noticed that he was sitting in direct sunlight for the first half. By the time that the 90 minutes was nearing its conclusion, darkness had fallen. The shots on the television of the Christ the Redeemer statue with the sun setting behind it were majestic. It was a wonderful setting for the final.
Overall, people are saying these have been the best finals since 1982. It was certainly a very good tournament, although I would argue that maybe a few more goals in the knockout stages would have made it even better. Certainly, the group stages were very good. In my view, the tournaments in 1986 and 1998 were very good ones, all the way through to the final itself.
Brazil did a very good job of hosting it. There were no major issues, and it was a joy to hear that a ticket touting scam that was traced back to a FIFA employee had been uncovered by the Brazilian police. Someone didn’t tell them that FIFA were above the Brazilian law, and credit to them for not turning a blind eye.
Obviously things fell very flat for the host nation in their last two matches. The only consolation is that there was less than a week of the tournament and four matches in total remaining when their challenge collapsed. Up until that point, the feelgood factor made the country a wonderful place to be. I am glad I was not there in the final few days, it would have been like gatecrashing the funeral of a stranger.
The country has to lick its football wounds, and rebuild its reputation. I suspect it will have to tolerate a return to the tactics of the early 1990s when defence became more of a priority and look to Neymar as their outlet to win matches. But the thought of returning to the style of Brazil 1970 can probably be consigned to history now. Football has changed far too much, and in 2014, you need some semblance of a defence against the very best teams. Economically, it will never recover the funds invested to stage it. The tournament did provide a good advert for the country as a destination, but the amount they will claw back from the increased number of visitors is dwarfed by the outlay on stadiums and infrastructure. Its legacy is some top grade stadiums, that for the most part, will only be half full, some new roads and some upgraded airports.
However, the conditions in which the majority of the population live, and the resources available to them, will see no material difference. It was the same story in South Africa. If Brazil had actually won the tournament, it would have given everyone in the country something, and for this reason, a lot of goodwill was extended towards the team. People could even live with the favouritism they seemed to be getting in the matches. However, there was no fixing the semi-final, it was not close enough to be influenced by key decisions.
For this observer, it was an opportunity to travel to, and around, a country I had never visited before. I saw a contrast between the cities I visited, and, to an extent, saw the good and bad of the place. I stayed in areas that were very visitor friendly and others that were anything but. I learned there were good taxi drivers and total villains, that it really does help to learn a bit of the local lingo and regret I did not have time to make a decent fist of learning more Portuguese for the trip. It would have been fascinating to talk more with the people there, and ask taxi drivers why the hell they were giving us a mystery tour.
The trip was, as with previous finals I have attended in Italy, France, Japan, Germany and South Africa, an experience that provided many incidents and memories that will never leave me. And experiences are what make a life. Brazil 2014 provided such experiences to many, and for the most part, those that made the journey to catch some games or just the atmosphere over there will have been grateful for the opportunity. Overall, a good tournament and a great host country. One suspects, for economic reasons, there might never be another World Cup Finals in South America in my lifetime. That’s a shame, but at least I managed to get over and experience one.
As I did with South Africa 2010, I will put together a pdf of the diary entries which anyone interested can download so I can illustrate the words with some more images from the trip. I will aim to make this available for when I do a piece on the Red Bulls friendly. I hope those that were interested in getting a feeling for what it was like to be over there, at least for the first couple of weeks of the tournament, enjoyed reading about my trip.
