By far this has been the best WC in my lifetime.
Has had a buzz since the Netherlands/Spain game and just ran with it
Agreed. It has been fantastic.
I think that the Netherlands, in that one game, gave the other countries a bit of a boost, so that the other teams were thinking "look what can be achieved with some good attacking football".
Seemed to open the competition up a bit more than we have seen in the past.
Maybe that's a bit naive, but that's how it feels.
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I doubt other teams are stranging their strategies mid-tournament because of one game
If there's one game that could have had that effect, it was Brazil whipping Spain in the Confederations Cup final a year ago. They did it with very offensive football.
And really to some extent the Spanish reign was all about ball control and offense. They were never the greatest defensive team.
Before that it was Italy in 2006 that surprised many by playing some of the most offensive minded football in that tournament.
So it's been building for a while. Really the last defensive team to win an international championship was Greece in 2004, and even that was considered an anomaly by most.
In any case, offensive football is obviously in fashion. Good times
2010 Spain was really defensive though. (more than 2008 and 2012 spain) Four 1-0 wins. I wish Paraguay would have scored first on that penalty shot in the QF, would have made Spain chase that game.
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I doubt other teams are stranging their strategies mid-tournament because of one game
If there's one game that could have had that effect, it was Brazil whipping Spain in the Confederations Cup final a year ago. They did it with very offensive football.
And really to some extent the Spanish reign was all about ball control and offense. They were never the greatest defensive team.
I wasn't suggesting that other teams were changing their entire strategies mid-tournament on the basis of 45 minutes of football.
Maybe just that psychologically it gave more of the underdogs a boost - if the World Cup champions could just crumble in that way, then other outcomes could also be achieved with a bit of positivity.
I'm not entirely convinced that the Spain way was particularly offensively minded either. It was "perfect" football in one sense, executed to the minutest detail, but also they sucked the life and joy out of the game to a certain degree.
There's nothing better IMO than open attacking football. As neutrals at this World Cup (and for most of the games here we are neutrals), we want to see good close opportunities at either end, open attacking football, lots of goals, and a certain amount of nerve-shredding action near the end of the game.
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2010 Spain was really defensive though. (more than 2008 and 2012 spain) Four 1-0 wins. I wish Paraguay would have scored first on that penalty shot in the QF, would have made Spain chase that game.
I wouldn't call them defensive, I'd say they mostly had trouble finishing their chances.
Spain never had that a real star striker during that time, and especially they could never find someone that really fit their system.
But yeah, I agree that they weren't offensive in the same sense that these games have been played. (Which is why I put ball control before offense in that sentence. That was the biggest part of their game.)
Getting a tattoo can be a pretty painful experience, but for Chile’s Mauricio Pinilla there was more hurt involved than usual as he got his agonising crossbar-hitting shot against Brazil inked on his back. Pinilla struck a sweet effort during the closing seconds of extra time Chile’s last 16 tie with the World Cup hosts and was just inches away from seeing his side through to the quarter-finals.
But as the game went to penalties, Brazil emerged victorious, sending an impressive Chile side home.
However, despite the agony of seeing his team come within a crossbar of knocking the hosts out, Pinilla decided to get the memory forever attached to him.
