Opinions, I guess. Or probably the fact that I've seen a couple more, but really, I don't care about superstars (we all know how Cristiano fared), rather I care about seeing some good matches. And if these good matches are delivered by the traditionally big teams, the better. I believe we missed out on this here, but glad you enjoyed it.

As for the German team not needing one, it comes back to my point, they play systematically, they play as a unit. I consider Muller an excellent player. Not my favorite, but can't discount his talent. Schweinstieger, I said above, he was the engine, as was Lahm. Again, both not players I truly like, but respect them for who they are.

A lot of them were fluff, though, ranging from mediocre to bad. Neur, however, I don't really rate anywhere near the top keepers. He stopped his development after signing up for Bayern, just an overrated chap like Hart. Deserving winner you say? I call them lucky flukes, in the way they got here.

Had these guys won 2002, 2006 or even 2010, I'd have praised them, because they played a better brand in those tournaments. Ultimately to be stopped by true champion teams. Every time. Hence, the chokers tag that some label them with. Here they did not have to face a team like that.

Practically, every German fan I know was jumping with joy seeing that Italians were out. Because I am willing the bet the farmhouse that they'd have stopped them again in their tracks. Heck, you check the records of Germany against Italy, and the Italians have 4 wins, 4 draws. Speaks for itself. Nothing more to add.

I had some words after the Brazil semifinal, which I will slide in in a later post. But my point remains, they had an easy way in, with some of the bigger teams out, and others in disarray, or with players injured. Not the fault of the Germans surely, they played who they had to. And came out with wins, unconvincing as some were.

It's just that I'd have appreciated it better, my dislike for their playing style withstanding, had they proven themselves against some of the bigger teams along the way. Because I am fairly certain, this squad, with the weaknesses it had would have been stopped a fair bit before the final.

Heck, they could have been knocked out in the group stages, had they the luck of Italy or England. Not that these two teams did anything about their luck, they never took the initiative. But apart from Portugal and Brazil (teams that tried to attack), this German team was, for my money, unconvincing. And lucky.

Haha. Messi not in the top 10 players of a tournament - still wins best player award.

This tournament just left a horrible taste in my mouth

And Messi... What a total let down, another choke job for his country

Agreed, he only took them all the way to the final.

Yet again, 0 goals in the KO stage. He's the definition of a choker. Argentina too, for the past 20 years.

Germany finally get rid of the choker tag though, that they've had the past decade or so, with Bayern and Germany finding success.

Why is everyone that's not winning or doesn't score a choker? I don't understand the way you use the term at all. So I guess then everyone from last night's final is a choker except for Goetze.

When was Germany considered good enough to win and failed to deliver? They've been over-achieving (if you take prediction into account) for the past 12 years!!

And how are the Argentinians chokers too? Everyone's been whining about how mediocre they look but when they don't win they're chokers?

So, I have many comments and answers here.



This, I can agree with partially. Yes, the KO tournament could have been more interesting. No big clash, no memorable game with balance.



Well, that's just not true. Germany had creative players and still have. Nowadays they have Reus, Schweinsteiger, Kroos and Götze. Müller is also a very exciting player: he's not just an efficiency machine.

But please think of Hässler and Möller when you say Germany had no flair. Those players had special spirit and a genuine feeling for the game like none before. Some who's been even more brilliant, but less efficient was Mehmet Scholl.

Saying they have no stories is also incorrect. If Franco Baresi would have been German, you'd also exclude him like you obviously exclude Kohler, Reuter, Sammer, Brehme and a bunch of others.


You see and this is where you just can't surpass you bias. Sure, Schweinsteiger is no Ronaldo. But goodness gracious me, is football reduced to the Messi's and Ronaldo's these days?

I cannot understand how you fail to see that in this tournament that offered balanced average squads Germany provided some rare distinctiveness to one-man squads like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Holland, etc. All the other balanced teams like France or Belgium played much worse.

So it's completely unfair to dismiss Germany or their way of playing by default, because much changed, and the way football is changing - Germany isn't the biggest evil, nor any evil if I'm concerned.


I really don't think Germany played like Greece! Come on!!



Who was bad in you opinion? The only two players that come to mind are Özil and Höwedes, but Benny had a tactically difficult position and in the end mastered it well.

Neuer? Sure, he might not be the best, but what's gotten into you to call him like Hart? He's way better then Hart, his keeping and reading skills are exemption. You may not like him, but he is a very good keeper who's almost always confident and error-proofed.


So what? Why should I lose respect to teams who get beaten by "true champions" like you say? That's illogical.


IMO that's just you second guessing and lamenting. In 1998 France had to face Paraguay, Italy and Croatia before playing against a Ronaldo-injured Brazil. Was that easy? Perhaps. In 2002 Brazil had also "just" England. If maybe some other team like Argentina, Portugal, France - passed the group stage, the result would have been different.

But that's completely irrelevant and not worth discussing.

No he didn't, he scored no goals in the entire KO stage

He only scored V Bosnia, Iran and Nigeria. BIG F*CKING WHOOP!

Easily forgotten.

If any player carried this Argentina it was a combination/choice of Mascherano, Di Maria & Zabaleta.

Messi is just the most over-rated pile of cr*p in history IMO.

Oh sorry, I hadn't realized that his name had to be in the scoresheet.

I think we were watching totally different games then.

Messi has been average throughout the tournament, he was invisible in the majority of the games Argentina played, only appearing here and there, wasn't really decisive in any of the games bar the assist to Di Maria, scored no goals in the KO stages, he wasn't even that influential in taking them out of the group stages, let alone to the final.

And to top it off he won player of the tournament which was just hilarious, as kurt mentioned above.

Thought Messi had a go tournament. The very fact that teams had to dedicate multiple players to shackle him down, was simply opening space for the others.

In the end his critics are downplaying him too much, by accusing him, if I may say so of not 'finishing his own assist'. In other words, if he plays up front to score, he is invisible. That's his fault and weirdly not his team mates being unable to bring him into play.

If he plays deep to get the ball and play in his forwards, again he sucks because he came nowhere close to scoring.


He obviously didn't deserve the golden ball, but he has nothing to be embarrassed about performance-wise.

Glad that the best team won this world cup.

That makes too much sense. What part of HE WAS NOT ON THE SCORESHEET don't you understand?


I don't see anyone from the German squad that stood out and Messi was the MVP from the second place team so I don't think it's undeserved. Who would you give it to?

28% think it should have gone to Robben, the highest. I think so too.

Robben deserved it but still, he was a semifinalist. I'm not saying Messi should have definitely won it but the criticism towards the decision is quite unfair.

Somewhat agreed, but I will, however, add that the criticism is not unfair. It's the intensity of it, that is. I personally am not bothered by it, then again, I think too low of awards that bodies give to themselves or their members (Oscars included). What's so special about them. If an independent body is giving it, then yeah.

Just for the record, I even read a statement from Maradona where he said that this one was just given by FIFA for marketing purposes, nothing else. Oh, and Robben helped his team to third. A small technicality, just thought I would mention it. Overall, though, Messi did just about enough to silence some of his critics.

Did not go all the way, no magic from him in the final as I expected, but it was a good tournament for the guy.

The criticism is definitely unfair when people say Messi did not deserve it because he did not score in any of the knockout games and instead wanted Robben to win it when he did not score in any of Holland's last 5 games, or when they mention Rodriguez who, as good as he was, played against lesser opposition and was a quarterfinalist.

I see Maradona is suddenly someone who we are supposed to take seriously.

Ties into the intensity bit, pal. Unfair it becomes when people bring bias into it, which is a normal thing to do. I really dislike the guy, you know my stance on him, but he showed up in the final alright. Missed chances, but you only miss them when you create them. It's another thing he could not cement his mark on the occasion.

Robben for me wins it, it was not about scoring. Neither is Messi, because really, like you said, it is more than just goals. They have the Golden Boot awards for that, do they not? Two big players that played well, the Dutch surely was a few leagues ahead (it shows in the official polling), and I think he deserved it.

It's just the case of there being a couple of better contenders. Not the fact that he did nothing in the knock out stages, because he did. However little. Messi was there, the end result, definitely not.


Better than Pelé.

Mascherano's wasn't either. He was Argentina's MVP, not Messi.

Yep. I don't even think Messi was in the top 5 of the tournament

James
Robben
Mascherano
Hummels
Neymar

Were all better imo, no not all of them made it into the final, but they were all great in the games they played

Hummels had a poor final tbh. Got exposed quite frequently first half for pace till the game settled.

Agree on James, Robben and Mascherano but honestly wouldn't include Hummels or Neymar.

My other two would be Suarez (the two matches he played Uruguay were world beaters - I firmly believe him to be the world's best now), and a toss up between Lahm and Van Persie.

Honourable mention for Zabaleta. Arguably the world's best right back. Imperious V Germany. Argentina's MOTM.

You must be aware that Hummels was injured and had problems for the whole game, that's why he was subbed of against Brazil early on. He played the whole tournament with an injury.

Oh, and about Messi. So you really think Messi deserved the Golden Ball? Was he the MvP of this tournament?

Personally, I would have picked Robben. If not him then Thomas Müller, who won the cup, had 5 goals (group stage + KO) and 3 assists. Messi's stats don't impress me as much.

But it's not always about the stats. And IMO we're back to Robben. If you ask me, he was even more decisive for Holland the Messi for Argentina. More dangerous and omnipresent.

Doesn't make much difference to my point as to WHY he wasn't great in the final, the fact is he wasn't.

To me, choking is when you're someone who is rated highly and regularly fail to deliver in important games. Argentina have failed to win anything since 1993, they've reached the latter stages in both the CA and WC a number of times - that's choking.

Germany have reached a bunch of latter stages too, had won nothing since 1996, that means they've been chokers since then. Obviously with Bayern's CL win and Germany's WC win that tag goes.

Messi is considered to be one of the best players. Before the World Cup he'd only scored in 2 competition in his career. He also, again, failed to score in the KO stages. He choked. To put it into perspective, Ronaldo has now scored in 6 straight tournaments. To me when you score 40/50 a season, then barely score goals in a major competition, and 0 in KO stages, that's choking.

What's your definition of choking if it's not this?

As for the best player award, I think it's worth noting how pretty much unanimously loved Messi is around the World. The fact that the decision to award this person award is being met with such huge criticism shows how little he deserved it. A number of papers have suggested the award was decided way before the World Cup Final was even played anyway. Like most awards, it means nothing, it's just a token gesture.

Still I think Hummels was probably the best CB in the tournament, I didn't know he had issues throughout the tournament as Fillipo said, which in my eyes make his performances even more special now that I know he was carrying an injury. I know the defending was absolutely awful in this tournament and it's not that hard to be the best out of a bad bunch, but still, in terms of defenders he was the most eye catching imo.

I think Neymar overall was much better than RvP who was pretty much absent throughout the KOs and really didn't add much to his side. Neymar basically dragged Brazil the semi-finals, it's not really his fault that he had his back broken and couldn't carry on. But up until that point, I think he was brilliant (and I'm someone who just a few months ago thought he was all tricks and no substance)


Agreed on Robben.

Muller, I'm personally not a fan, I don't really like his style, sure he's efficient but, meh.

Muller has a really good touch married to some great game awareness. He is a definite champion material to me. Would happily have him in Milan and would even more happily trade Balotelli for him.

Also props to Schweinsteiger. For me he has been the best player in the KOs amongst all the teams. Gladiatorial at times, and magical at others.

Ok..so my two cents on the Golden Ball. It should have gone to Robben. But like Pana said, he didn't reach the final. That is a pre-requisite to win the Golden Ball.

So that only left Messi and Lahm. Muller has been spectacular but mostly reaping the benefits of a well worked plan. Mascherano really came into his own only in the last two or three games. He's been very average before that. Lahm has been crucial but has almost no stats to back his importance to the team. Which left Messi alone as a pick. He has been crucial to drag Argentina to the knockouts. And let's be honest, every team has had to work twice as hard to stop him. It was their good fortune that considering the form of Argentina's attackers, Messi was their only threat to deal with. Imagine if one more player in the mould of Riquelme or Batistuta had been present in this squad?! This would have been Messi's world cup plain and simple. He was in good touch and working hard for the team.

So finally. Yes. I understand why Messi got the golden ball, but I don't agree with it.

I don't think the final argument works. Looking back, I see Forlan and Schillaci who did not play the final, yet won the award.

Oh, and I was also a bit surprised to see the Young player award go to Pogba and Fair play award to Colombia.

Agreed about Pogba, underwhelming considering what he does on a weekly basis at Juve.


They should have given the fair play thing to Uruguay

That was your point, not mine.


I'm not saying Messi should have been the GB winner, I just don't understand those who so strongly claim he should not, and I'm making a point why he was.


I don't remember Germany been the favorites to win previous tournaments, people always talk about how they always do well "despite whatever".

Argentina were never favorites to win either.

And more importantly Argentina are not now chokers and Germany non-chokers just because of a simple kick the ball. Just because Goetze is a better sub than Palacio does not mean a whole team is or is not a team of chokers. A single goal does not make the team that scored winners and the team that lost losers (mentally not practically). This is again the 'you're first or you're nothing' mentality which I couldn't disagree more with.

Why are we only counting Messi's (or Cristiano's) goals and determining his worth merely by that? If it's that simple why is there even a debate as to who is the best player? It should be the guy the scores the most goals. Well, no it's not. For starters, this season, also with Barcelona, Messi has not been playing as an advanced role as he used to. Regardless of that, every footballer does so much more than simply put up a number on a box score.

Sorry, but this is rubbish. Argentina play in a region where they are a top dog. The other major nation in that region doesn't take their regional competition seriously. Brazil took an U23 team to the Copa.

If you seriously feel like they're not a top 2 favourite to win the Copa, every single time, then you're deluded.7

Argentina and Germany, pretty much all the time, are top 4/5 favourite in every tournament they enter.

I was talking about the WC. I have no idea what's going on at the Copa as I've never once watched it.

Top 4/5 favorite means nothing. There are not enough good teams, in my view frankly, there are none. Belgium was top 5 this year...

So surely that's even more reason Argentina/Germany should've won more in the past few decades.

No, my point was, it's always open because there are no good teams and it's difficult for the same reason because even theoretically lower level teams can challenge anyone like Costa Rica leading the match against Holland to a PS. In my view, you can't choke if you're not distinctly better than someone. And even then losing doesn't mean you choked because anything can happen (to some extent). I mean, it's the reason why we watch sports, if we knew the outcome we wouldn't bother.

I think Argentina are clearly better than the likes of Costa Rica. they were an easy top 4 team, without any doubt.

On paper they are. Argentina were not eliminated by CR anyway. My point is, how are the Argentinians chokers for losing to what most people thought was a better team? Even if Argentina was slightly better I still would not call them chokers. There has to be an obvious quality gap between the two teams in my view.

Brazilian press have disclosed that after Germany won the WC, and after the party ended, Angela Merkel's government donated the prize money of 35M dollars to the Brazilian govt to build infrastructure for the poor the work as well as donated to the Brazilian labor party to support the Brazilian economy. This, a first for any nation participating (or won) the WC and the German's comment: "we did not come here to take money, we came here to win..".


The above is a translation from our local paper here

That's great of them. Not that the German economy really needed the money, while Brazil are in the situation they're in, mostly of their own doing. Hopefully that money is really spent on where it's needed

It's obviously a kind act. But let's be honest, we're talking of countries here. 35m to Germany is nothing, 35m to Brazil is nothing.

35m for Brazil to spend properly is a lot imo.

Agreed. It was a kind gesture as you said directed to the poor of Brazil, as they have been left hurt by their govt's spending on the WC while they had necessity needs not met. 35M is nothing, but a kind gesture nonetheless.

For a country? Nah. What Germany gave them is the equivalent of less than 10p per person... To put it into perspective, the money Germany gave Brazil is what Birmingham spent refurbishing New Street (train) Station.

It's more of a gesture really. And it should be embraced, not criticized.

I wasn't criticising it, it's just sad how so much money, in reality, means so little. As you say, it's just a gesture and a very admirable one at that.

I don't think it should be considered as spread out per person.

Yeah, in terms of countries it can barely be considered as a blip, but when we're talking about the kind of poverty there is in Brazil, I think it's decent.

And yeah, it's mostly all about the gesture, but still it's nice to see

The gesture? Embraced. Publicity of it? Heavily condemned.

Yesterday Ozil was bragging about donating money to Brazilian kids for surgery. Sorry, but that leaves a sour tase in my mouth.

If you're doing it for altruism, why would you go public? Oh yeah, you want to pose and be loved.

Look at Totti - donates/donated millions anonymously because he didn't want it getting out. He didn't want praise, he just wanted to help people out of the kindness of his heart. He was furious when it leaked out. Didn't pose, didn't get photos taken. Just avoided it altogether.

Ronaldo also does this all the time, and makes zero publicity about it, because it's about helping those in need, not being praised for doing so.

Anyone who donates to charity and tells people about it is doing it to be praised.

And that's egotism and vanity at its worst.

This thing by Germany is the same. They should have kept their donation private, because it looks like Merkel just wants positive PR for her regime.

If I were in the position to depend on other people's donation, I wouldn't give a damn if the person brags or not. As I said, the gesture is what counts. It's important they did it, everything else is peripheral to that.

Trying telling dst and JB that about LeBron!

You wouldn't mind being used publicly for their ego?
Where's your self-respect man!



Not for me. I don't like boasting about it, it completely defeats the purpose of doing it.