What a fantastic world cup!
Tied for the most goals ever scored (Thanks Brazilian Defense), plenty of new faces taking center stage and so many great games and finishes.
Ghana - Germany and USA - Belgium were the pick of the litter for me.
Messi getting the Golden Ball was.....very odd to say the least. His face pretty much said it all. Me? Seriously? He looked like someone had grounded him and told him to go to his room after he collected his trophy.
There were a few real standouts for me: JAMES, obviously. I thought Lahm had a wonderful tournament, especially once he moved back to defense. Neuer was immense. Dirk Kuyt went out in a blaze of glory as a Dutch Army Knife. Everyone's favorite butt-tearing pitbull Mascherano was outstanding. Timmy Howard had a game for the ages and David Luiz re-defined how to be play central defense by not playing it at all.
Germany were the best team in the end. They had more talent on their bench than most teams have on their starting 11. Seriously, they played without Reus, the Bender twins, barely much Gotze.... that's insane.
The real moral of the story is that patience and planning do pay off. Germany made it their mission to redefine their football after Euro 2000 and this was the fruit of their labor. I'd be hard pressed to say they aren't favorites for both Euro 2016 and Russia 2018.
Now..... we can all get back to our lives, until August at least.
I had 3 of the 4 Semi-finalists right but got the order wrong. Still, considering I picked them all pre-tournament, I'm not complaining.
Take care all.
