So long and thanks for the memories, Brazil. We’ll never forget you
We came expecting protests and chaos. But the lasting legacy of 2014 will be the recasting of international football at the pinnacle of the sport and a new Wunderteam from Germany...This was a World Cup of bold, rich flavours, a heavily sauced affair that was at times almost a little too pungent for its own good. Never have so many tears been shed by so many athletes in such stunning high definition close-up. Never has so much incident, outrage and media-fanned obiter dicta successfully intruded from the fringes. Above all it has been a deeply sensory, even rather sensual World Cup. Just as the global TV audience swooned over the action and the tournaments heavily marketed poster boys J-Rod, Leo, C-Ron, Louis van G so travelling around Brazils cities and stadiums was a brilliantly engaging experience.
This was the first tournament South American fans have travelled to in such numbers on their own continent. In the days leading up to the final, the streets of Rio were duly thronged with sozzled and boisterous Argentinians, the same supporters who had removed their shirts and staged celebratory fraternal fist fights in the stands in São Paulo after the victory against Switzerland...
And what about the hosts anyway? In the end Brazil 2014 was both a PR disaster and a triumph, a shared sporting nightmare and a shared success; a triumph of stadium building fatally undermined by the spectacle of inadequate roads, housing and basic infrastructure that surrounded many of these high-spec space capsules.
Inside Brazils wet-paint mega-stadia the experience was slick enough, the staging spectacular, the relentless toadying, schmaltzified handshakes for peace, white doves of Blatter and all the rest of it familiarly inane. For this success no credit whatsoever must go to the spendthrift politicians and discredited organisers of Brazil 2014, but to the workers responsible for somehow sweating the whole thing into place and to the army of local volunteers who brightened and eased and smoothed what delays and hitches the vanishing staircase, the neurotic fear of adequate signage did show through...
More at:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jul/14/brazil-world-cup-memories-legacy-2014
3catwoman3
(24,026 posts)2018 feels like too long to wait to revel in a whole month of soccer once again.
BeyondGeography
(39,377 posts)This first round was almost too much to bear, in terms of quality, excitement and the global parade, in all of its emotional splendor. We're in a cocoon here in the States, so, from the department of good stuff, to see Sulley Muntari of Ghana come up with one of the best plays of the tournament leading to a goal v. Germany and to read about him handing out money in a poor neighborhood, was a welcome escape from the normal preoccupations. Or Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon tearing up as he hugged and consoled one of his fans on the way to the team bus that would take him from the Cup forever. Or the incredible performances from teams such as Costa Rica, Algeria, and Colombia, and the resulting outpouring of fan support, both from the people who made the trip to Brazil and when they returned home. And, of course, to watch the sport and this event gain ever more traction here in the States...we could go on and on, couldn't we?
3catwoman3
(24,026 posts)...because I didn't want it to be over.
Our 24 and 21 year old sons have played soccer since the older one started in a U-6 park district league, so we have been following soccer devotedly since then. Both our sons could quote soccer statistics with the best of the commentators, and it fun to listen to them do so. The younger one will play his last season of college soccer this fall. They both play in club men's leagues.
I get caught up in the emotions of the fans, players and coaches. My own favorite US moment was Clint Dempsey's electrifying goal in the first few seconds of the first game. I was breathless after Goetze's chest trap and blazing shot in yesterday's final - I always love it when players basically pass to themselves and then blast it into the back of the net. I agonize with every shot that bounces off one of the posts. I thought two of the most touching moments were David Luiz and another Brazilian player hugging James Rodriquez after that game. and German players doing the same for Luiz after the devastating 7-1 blowout.
I am 63, so there were no girls' sports when I was in high school. My only experience playing soccer was being foolish enough to think I could played in a men's-and-women's over-30 indoor league when I was 47. I scored one goal, and sustained a torn ACL that had to be repaired surgically - not exactly a fair trade off, but, at least as a neighbor of mine observed, I got to boast about having a true athletic injury.
BeyondGeography
(39,377 posts)[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)and not hear soccer on the TV- it was a great break from the usual Faux News that is generally bleating out from it.