I was meant to get this up and done more than a few hours ago, but the 4 am wake ups and restless nights had left me with a less than desirable health status. I am not to make excuses for my failure though, but if I were I would totally blame Spain. Yes our World and European Champions are the earliest defending champions to be eliminated from the World Cup. While this record is unique to Spain, this is not the first time this has happened… in fact this has happened three times in the twenty first century.
In 2010 Italy was a pale shadow of the force that won the World Cup in 2006, not even managing to defeat the All Whites, and who can forget how in 2002, World and European Champions France were duly knocked out, sending shock waves around the world. Even the 2006 Brazilian team which made the quarter final failed to set the world alight. So none of these teams I would argue have been as dominant as this Spanish side, who I feel are truly one of the all-time greats.
Their dominance is felt even at club level with an all-Spanish final in the UCL finals this year. But they are no more, at least for this tournament. Much has been said about the decline of Spain’s Golden Generation and the death of tika-taka. In so much has been said that I don’t really feel I have anything worthwhile to add to the various arguments. No, instead the elimination of La Roja has sparked off another, more base sense of excitement, which had been burning slowly since the tournament had started.
This fire has now fully come alight. This tournament has not shown any truly dominant team and no team has been completely over run by the opposition. (Except of course Spain) This tournament is close, and it will continue to be close. I now cannot wait for the next early morning wake up where I look forward to seeing if teams like Algeria, Honduras and Iran (to name a few) are going to show up their more established rivals that they are minnows no more. They are forces to be reckoned with, and treated with respect.
This is the tournament where we see players like Mexico’s Guillermo Ochoa, Costa Rica’s Joel Campbell and United States’ Jermaine Jones, pick themselves up by scruff of their necks and pull out performances that let them complete with the Messis and Ronaldos of the World. And why not? So far courage has been rewarded richly and timidness has been punished horribly.
I think back now to two weeks ago, during our workplace betting pool, I drew Costa Rica from the hat. The workplace bookie laughed squarely in my face and said “Bad luck mate”. But I smiled. I had been hoping to get a team which I didn’t know too much about (but duly researched later, don’t you worry) and I liked the idea of a team which was not heavily favoured but would never let anyone else push them around and would fight hard for the result, and generate a lot of excitement for me. At that time I thought I had gotten exactly what I wanted; little did I know then how true that I had gotten so much more. GO TICOS!
NineSixFourTwo 