Ah…ok i think i see the americanisms coming into the clash over if this was a good WC or not! ;)
hahaha!
I was looking at the Chicago Fire too, first I didn’t have a team to pull for, now I can pick and choose!
I think that, depends on what you want from the game, it’s fair that some people didn’t think it was a great cup. Maybe just a great spectacle. Myself, I liked the futbol part too.
Other than seeming Anti American, WTF does this even mean???
According to Slate, the World Cup did leave plenty (so far) of US fans watching more futbol:
There’s been a post–World Cup spike in Major League Soccer viewership, according to ESPN, and MLS streaming packages are reportedly up 300 percent.
I had two friends buy season tickets to the San Antonio Scorpions (not MLS yet, some other more minor league) after the World Cup, guys that previously had never paid to watch a game in their lives.
I’ve never, ever, ever seen something like that youtube clip at a football match in the uk (or europe even). It is maybe part of what football is about in the usa? Which may explain the disconnect i was getting from most american posters about my thinking it wasn’t a great WC 2014? You have a different idea on it maybe? Maybe based on the general way you ‘do’ sports in the usa (the ‘spectacle’ an as important part of it as the game itself?) etc. So no i was not being anti-american this time, just trying to understand this divide on most american opinion thinking it was a great WC (the USA team did do very well off course, so that is probably a large part of it), when i found the overall quality, especially of the best players, very average or even poor (Spain out early, Brazil in general etc etc) ;)
Surely the best players at the World Cup were the players that played the best at the World Cup? I think people enjoyed the World Cup exactly because it wasn’t just all just the usual powerhouses trampling everyone else down. And that gives the opportunity to the other countries and players to show what they can do.
I think I get what you’re saying, that you think the skill necessary to win this World Cup was less than required in others, and that dampened your enjoyment, but I don’t think everyone will necessarily agree with you on that. And not just because they’re young, or American! I see the same debate in a lot of eSports events too, where you often get upsets where very solid technically skilled players get knocked out of tournaments by more flashy, risky but not necessarily as skillful players. Different people are entertained by different aspects of the game.
I’m English and have been watching world cups long enough, (78), that there’s no new car smell left and I thought that was an excellent world cup.
I think there are two main reasons for people thinking that this was one of the best (or at least, most watchable) World Cups ever:
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Goals. There were a ton of goals scored this World Cup. I think I saw that this World Cup had the highest goals per match in the group stage since 1950. Plus it had the most or second-most goals of any tournament. I think this can further be translated as teams actually going out and playing some offensive soccer and not all sitting back like we saw in South Africa. There was some very early scoring, which helps, but there were also some dramatic late winners as well (the Swiss, plus Argentina against the Swiss come to mind). And let’s not forget some sublime finishing: James Rodriguez’s volley, Tim Cahill’s weaker foot volley (my favorite), and Van Persie’s header.
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Parity. I think this made a huge difference as well. Sure, some of it was because the “big” teams weren’t nearly as great, but there were also no really weak teams like North Korea in South Africa or something like Tahiti from the Confederations Cup (unless you’re counting Honduras and Cameroon, both of which have some strong players but had poor tournaments). There were still some blowouts, but the victims were mostly not weaker teams: Brazil (1-7 to GER), Portugal (0-4 to GER), Spain (1-5 to NED), the Swiss (2-5 to FRA). In fact, some of the teams that were thought of as weak were the most surprising! Costa Rica, of course, but also Algeria, and even Iran and Australia put in some spectacular performances (against Argentina and the Dutch, respectively).
I do agree with Zak in that the tournament lacked a signature team, like Spain last year or Brazil from some 20 years ago. If there were one, then I think this World Cup would be picked as the best ever by the vast majority. It certainly was one of the best though, even if just in recent memory.
In terms of number of goals, don’t forget that the ball has gone through quite a few changes in recent years (it’s much lighter for example than it used to be), which makes it easier to bend when struck, which does lead to more goals in general (in regular league as well as WC).
But my grumpy old manitus aside, apart from Chainsawing a huge tree, what other pre-match signature stuff do american teams get upto? It must be a ‘local’ specialty thing i guess, which is kind of cool if a little erm…WWE (to my purist beer-and-pie-in-the-freezing-cold-looking-for-a-fight-after-the-match tastes). Does the team from Greenbay eat huge wads of cheese maybe, or is the cheese thing just for the American Football? that kind of thing, my mind is furiously creating vast stateside football spectacles!!! ;)
So this is our general all including footie thread right?
Manchester United just destroyed L. A Galaxy 7-nil on that friendly. Ugh. It looked like Germany-Brasil.