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The weeks following a major sports event such as the World Cup are sad indeed. It’s akin to school starting after summer holidays, or going back to work on Monday after a great weekend. Everything goes back to “normal”. The days after such an event feel dull and lifeless. There’s no good excuse to pull yourself away from work, or to stay up late watching the game you PVR’ed during the day while trying so hard to avoid finding out the score before-hand. And this time of the year is the worst since we’ve already had our “highs” through a steady barrage of the Winter Olympics, March Madness, the NHL Finals, the NBA Finals, and of course the majestic World Cup. That’s a lot of sports. That is one big sports hangover. Life begins again. During these momentous sports periods, we feel alright taking the time to watch games when maybe we really shouldn’t be. Everyone else already is. And the World Cup is King. The sport of the people, the sport of the world. If there is any major sports event where you can legitimately feel guiltless about taking time off, it should be during this epic time. So, in saying that, don’t feel bad to take off another 5 minutes to read over the Brilliant moments from the FIFA World Cup 2014.
Brilliant - Costa Rica making it to the quarter finals. There’s always a Cinderella story. There’s always the darling of the tournament. This year’s darling was definitely Costa Rica. Put into one of 3 groups of death, (Yes, I know everyone claims their team was in the Group of death) Costa Rica not only made it through, but went through in first place undefeated. They defeated Vampire Suarez & Co, Italy, and tied England. They then defeated Greece in PK’s (always a hard team to beat since they place 11 guys in their own 18 yard box and are told never to leave it), and came EVER so close to beating Holland. Which leads to my next point of brilliance;
Brilliant - Tim Krul: At first when watching Timmy trash talk the Costa Rican players before they took their shots I was infuriated. Why was I infuriated? Because Holland is my least favorite team. Never have liked them, never will. You always need one of those teams right? As such, I hated Timmy at the moment for doing that. I then hated him even more when they won because of his Brilliance. I couldn’t stand his “un-sportsmanship,” his lack of respect for his opponent. But then after a couple of days of mourning, I realized how much of a hypocrite I was being. I love the mental side of the game (as long as you’re not calling someone’s Mother a Terrorist; MATERAZZI!). Coming off the bench is hard enough. Coming off the bench in a World Cup is even harder. Coming off the bench without any game time to get warmed up makes it even harder. Coming off the bench, in a World Cup game, without any warm up time in the game, and facing Penalty Shots on top of all that is insane! Most people would have probably just quietly walked between the posts and meekly tried to stop a shot. Tim Kruy went in and OWNED the penalty shots. In hindsight, it was awesome! Is this not what sports is about? Brilliant moments like this?
Un-Brilliant - Suarez biting someone: I’ve already mentioned this happening somewhere else but this has to get mentioned multiple times. Biting someone for the third time when you’ve had a great year re-building your image (sort of), and are in the running to get player of the year? Come on… The worst part about it? He actually tried to say he didn’t mean to do it. Like, did he not watch the replay? When and if he did watch the replay, did he not think about how absurd it would be to tell people he didn’t actually mean to bite Chiellini? At no point when watching the replay will anyone EVER(!) think he bit Chiellini by accident. Here’s the best part though; he came out after telling people he didn’t mean to bite him, and “admitted” the truth and said he will never do it again. The saddest part of all this story though? The fact that I was one of the guys that actually supported Suarez and defended him to death. I told people it’s because of his upbringing, and from being from South America it’s different, don’t judge etc etc… I feel stupid now. I sympathize with those people who got bamboozled into thinking Lance Armstrong didn’t actually take performance enhancing drugs or whatever the heck he took.
Un-Brilliant – Brazil losing 7-1: Ok, this is really sad. I still feel bad for the players, the coach, the fans, the country, the president, the stadium-workers, the assistant coaches, the doctors, the massage therapists, you name it, if that person was affiliated to Brazil in any way I feel bad. I was actually going for Germany, in part because Brazil knocked out my beloved Chile, but in part simply because I’ve never really cheered for Brazil. But I have nothing against them. You see, I could have handled Holland losing 7-1 no problem. But Brazil? I felt bad, I felt real bad. This is their worst loss ever. I remember reading about Brazil losing in Brazil to Uruguay and that was brutal, this is worse. Brazil will probably never host another World Cup in our life-times, especially with the way FIFA is picking hosts these days. That means that the soccer country of the world with the most wins will have to wait another eternity to finally win in their home country.
Brilliant – The goals and the style of soccer played: By the time the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 had witnessed its first 10 group games, it felt like we had witnessed 9 tie games, all either 0-0 or 1-1. Never-mind the fact that if you were in North America, you had to get up at about 5:00 am to watch your team. Getting up to watch a 0-0 game is usually the worst. To top it all off? You had to listen to about 50,000 fans blow those stupid Vuvuzelas. This World Cup after its first 10 games? Zero ties, lots of goals, zero 5:00 am wake-up times, and best of all no Vuvuzelas. The mindset of teams at this World Cup has been fantastic. Coaches are going for it. It was a treat, minus a couple of stinkers, to watch this World Cup.
All good things must come to end they say right? As such, the World Cup is now behind us. The World seemed to stop in order for the World Cup to take center stage. It brought us joy, sadness, regret, pity, moments of brilliance, and moments of un-brilliance. We now have 4 years to move on with our lives before we once again pause to admire the impact that the World Cup has on us all. These moments of Brilliance/Un-Brilliance will go down in history. Let us hope the next World Cup brings us some more of the same.
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