Having taken a sabbatical
from all forms of alcohol, the World Cup and the performance of my declared
choice for the championship (Brazil) was a bitter pill to swallow as I am still
haunted by the thought that my big side, samba football, home of the great
Pele, Socrates, Garincha, Revellino, Careca, Zico, Roberto Carlos and ever
present ‘Buff Teet’ Ronaldhino, got a 7-1 whopping from the eventual champions
Germany.
That said, I would like to
publicly congratulate Germany on a well-played tournament, clearly they thought
of everything in capturing their 4th hold on the trophy but also,
they left a fitting legacy behind in Bahia, Brazil. When I say these people
thought of everything, I mean they thought of everything. The Germans went to
Bahia and built; a Hotel, a Health Centre, a Football Field, a road to the
facility and they used only local labor to achieve this.
Not a lot was written in the
international press about this back-story but it is too heart warming not to
mention. While in Bahia, Brazil, the Germans socialized with the locals by
hosting a festival, visited with the locals, which from all accounts suggests
are from the lower socio-economic class in Brazil. They even donated an
ambulance for the health centre and wore the local team kit for their training
sessions. On leaving the World Cup with the most prestigious trophy in world sports,
the Germans gifted all that created to the people of Bahia, which is now to be
transformed in a school for poor children. This my friends is what true
champions are made of. It is also what investment in major sports bring to
third world nations like ours from bigger more affluent first world nations.
This noble act though self-serving
for the Germans whilst at the tournament, as to be one of my highs of #Brazil2014. Here are the rest of my highs and lows:
Match of the Tournament: Germany 2 Ghana 2. This has to have been the most intense
match from start to finish, it had everything in it that a football fan wanted
to see in a world cup including, four goals, 31 shots at goal, 16 shots on
target, 28 fouls, almost equal possession and10 corners, wow what a match.
Player of the Tournament: Arjen Robben. There wasn’t a player in the
tournament that meant more to his team’s success than Robben. His relentless
enterprise and industry in attack was refreshing with so many teams electing to
play safe first. The eventual winner Lionel Messi was less than inspiring
throughout the tournament and many must have wondered why even players like
James Rodriquez and Thomas Mueller didn’t figure more in those votes.
Goal of the Tournament: James Rodriquez. The goal against Uruguay was simply
spectacular and in my view the best in the tournament. Comparable mentions for
Robin Van Persie goal against Spain and Tim Cahill – Australia vs. Holland.
Biggest Disappointment: Germany 7 Brazil 1.
I knew after the second goal it was all over because the body language
said it all, but never would I have thought a score line like this. I still get
depressed thinking about it.
World
Eleven: (4-2-3-1):
Neuer; Lahm, Vlaar, Hummels, Blind, Mascherano, Kroos; Robben, Neymar,
Rodríguez, Messi.
I think this
was officially the social media world cup, with hundreds of millions around the
globe enjoying the tournament via the large and small screens and live tweeting
every match, some of which provided comic relief for otherwise boring football,
but more importantly raises the benchmark for what to expect in 2018 (Russia)
and beyond. Statistics like 35.6m tweets during the Brazil vs. Germany
semi-final match, which was more than the Finals, which had 35.1m tweets.
Of note, before this World Cup the most tweeted about event was Superbowl
XLVIII with 24.9m tweets.
During the
Final between Germany vs. Argentina, twitter recorded its highest tweet per
minute when the goal was scored at 618,725 TPM.
Not to be
outdone, Facebook hit a billion posts about the world cup in the second round
of the competition with 220 million Facebook users involved. According to Facebook data
editors, they had never before had an event be it sports or otherwise reaching
a billion interactions. By the end of the World Cup in Brazil, Facebook reached
3 billion interactions involving 350m users.
The most
popular conversations were around the World Cup Final with 88 million people
generating 280 million interactions - making the game the single most
talked-about sporting event in Facebook history.
Google
was not to be outdone; there were over 2.1 billion World Cup-related searches
on Google. The
most searched players worldwide during the tournament were Brazil's Neymar
Jr at number one, followed by Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, then
Argentina's Lionel Messi. Neymar Jr was
in third place, but after his back was injured and he was ruled out of the rest
of the World Cup, there was a spike in searches. His search volume increased 10
times his average on the day of his injury and he has been the most searched
player ever since.
It should be
interesting to see if there is a role reversal in broadcast rights fees in
coming years with Internet or streaming rights becoming more pervasive and
costly to the traditional terrestrial and cable rights. Even with that said
though, you only have to read this article that appeared in Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/ to understand the reach and demand for this game that most of us call Football
and the Americans call Soccer.
Speaking of
the Americans, how the game has grown up North!!! Did you not see how many
Americans went to Brazil to support the Team USA or did they? Some believed the
huge influx of Americans in Brazil were immigrants of Latin and South America
who migrated to the US for greener pastures. Whichever it was, it is hard to deny
that the game is on strong footing in the US with Major League Soccer games pulling
in as a big a crowd as NFL games.
Maybe finally
our good friends in the USA will recognize that in order to be a World Champion
at anything you have to complete against the rest of the world at something
that the rest of the world is equally good at; Basketball, Baseball and NFL
Football are great sports but until you have full national teams competing in
global championships, it’s just media hype to say a domestic club team is a
world champion. Please don’t get me wrong, I love all three sports and follow all three religiously, but nothing compares to the greatest show on earth for
that little gold trophy standing 36.8cm high and weighing 6.1kg.
The memories
are for us to enjoy and keep the conversations alive until we meet again in
Russia 2018.
Read and Share!
One Love as always
You can find me on twitter maninja2 | Facebook Donovan White | Google+ Donovan White
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