Someone said that under 30's will think this was the best World Cup yet,but it's just the best they have seen.I think that is probably correct it was a good one compared to recent ones.My personal favourite is '74.My name probably explains why.
Helped immensely by the fearless performances of Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica. All three of them acquitted themselves far, far better than the European 'heavyweights' of Spain, Portugal and even Italy. Even Iran and Algeria showed more spine and desire than England Fantastic tournament, fully agree with Superman.
I watched pretty much every match and was thoroughly entertained , England got their 2 tap ins and deservedly went home in shame Holland France and Columbia were brilliant and the Germans were clinical enough and hungry enough to win the thing. The best moment for me was watching Leroy get that stunning header for Holland my favorite player ,obviously he had to get injured and miss the rest of the tournament .
I see on the news today that even Sepp Blatter was surprised that Messi got the 'player of the tournament' award and he thought James Rodriguez deserved it more - totally agree!!!
You could have given the award to anyone in the Germany team and they would have deserved it more! Messi did nothing of note, other than scoring in the last minute against Iran! It was a good goal but this world cup has highlighted more than most that Messi can't carry Argentina. He shouldn't really need to with the attacking players they have at their disposal!
IMO, Hart stays on his line too much. He should have caught the cross from which Balotelli scored, as it was only a yard or so in front of him.
It has been a fantastic World Cup, one of the best and close to my favourite of 86. I don't think there has been a player even close to the performances of Rodriguez, he was a real delight to watch and has that genuine quality to put him in with the elite. Superb player, doesn't need space or blinding pace to perform. Plus he won me £50 in the Dream Team competion at work.
Agreed it was a great tournament and Rodriguez ahead of Messi for the Golden Ball. Disagree with Kemp above on Robben. No doubt he played well but the diving over and over again was ridiculous.
Messi wouldn't have made top 5 or even 10 may be for me. I'd have been happy with; Rodriguez, Schwinstiger, Robben, Neuer, Kroos (not his best game in the final, granted!), Mascerano, Vlaar or even Alvarado. I think the list could actually go on some ways more before I arrived at Messi! Bah!
And he didn't need to dive, as most defenders just hacked him down to halt his progress. He didn't get ANY protection from the referees, especially against Brazil. Well said GM
i did find it a little bizarre that some pundits hadn't heard of james rodriguez before the tournament began. it was almost made out that he was 'discovered' during the world cup! this is a player who has been wowing fans for the past three years at porto and monaco, who lets not forget paid almost â¬50m for him 12 months ago. surely if they knew their football, as you'd hope they would being pundits, they'd have known about him? one thing which did annoy me was the commentating and summarising. i never thought we'd find a worse co-commentator than andy 'tactics truck' townsend but clarke carlisle somehow managed it! who won man of the match in the final by the way? if it wasn't schweinstiger the world has gone mad! also interesting that blatter says he wouldn't have chosen messi, yet the player of the tournament was chosen by a combination of adidias 'critiques' and 7 fifa members, including a mr s. blatter
Agree with all of this, though quite extraordinarily Messi got the highest Opta score of all players in the tournament. I think there's a lot to be said for Messi's activity off the ball, which is rapidly forgotten in the story about him not having a stand-out world cup EDIT: not sure I agree with the MotM - for me that was Boateng. He just got better and better as the match went on and looked fresh as a daisy in extra time. Hummels was obviously hurting and Boateng covered incredibly well. But after that it has to be Schweinsteiger
had to laugh at lawro who was moaning about messi 'not running around'. i mean, has he ever watched messi play? he isn't a headless chicken who feels he needs to run around off the ball to make it look like he's doing something! he walks into space so that he can produce some magic. i do think messi had a very good world cup but i do think there were a couple of others more deserving of winning the award. it doesn't look like he'll win the world cup now and i wonder if that will prevent him being acclaimed as the grestest. in terms of my footballing memories i am just about old enough to recall maradona but it was the beginning of the end of his career. 'fat' ronaldo is still the greatest individual player i've seen (during the years 95-98 he was extraordinary) and had it not been for injuries he may well have been the greatest of all time. messi is right up there with him, ahead in terms of consistency, but i'd like to see him move club and test himself somewhere else.
