We have now attended our last World Cup Match in Brazil and
it will be another 4 years before we revive the experience in Russia. We
watched Holland scrape past Costa Rica in the last of the quarterfinals, in the
end relying on penalties to get the job done. Holland have been the villains of
this World Cup in many people’s eyes,
with Robbens diving antics, and their questionable tactics and gamesmanship, so
I was disappointed that the plucky Costa Rican could not pull a shock win out
of the bag and progress to the Semi’s. It was a good game to attend however with
our seats high up beside one of the goals, we endured the first half boredom,
enjoyed the improved second half, and were jumping out of our seats by the time
extra time had finished, as we settled in for the drama of penalties. It never
feels right to settle a game of such importance by the lottery that is penalties,
especially as Holland obviously deserved the win
Since that match we have been hunkered down in our apartment
trying catch up on some rest and relaxation, and Fiona & I have been trying
to shake the annoying cold/cough we have developed, (Ican hear Fiona coughing
as I write). We have spent 2 or 3 long days of listening to podcasts, wandering
to the supermarket, enjoying the brutal sunshine between the brief rainy squalls,
and deciding which bar we should honour with our presence to watch the
semi-finals. We have sort of made a small Mexican restaurant/bar called “Gaupo”
our local after meeting some really nice people there, and it was here that we
had decided to watch the Germany v Brazil Semi-final. Unfortunately, a large
number of the locals had the exact same idea, and with the bar being so small,
we were forced to cross the road and squeeze ourselves into another bar, where
we enjoyed the building atmosphere.
By kick-off we had been in there for almost 2 hours and many
Caipirinha’s had been drunk, but i could tell that something
out-of-the-ordinary was about to happen, don’t ask me how, but I just had that
feeling. I was expecting this to be an epic battle between the uber-strike force
of the Germans against the passionate defence and flair of the home team
Brazil, and that it would be a low scoring and cagey affair, boy was I
wrong....! After the first German goal went in there was still hope and belief
in the hearts of the Brazilian fans around us, but when the second went in,
suddenly the mood changed, both in the bar and on the pitch. The players lost
their composure, they lost any semblance of team structure and they fell apart
in a more spectacular fashion that anyone could have imagined. In the bar the
screams of anguish started, amplifying with every goal the German machine scored,
and the faces of the people around us made the painful one-way journey from rapturous
unquestioning belief to disbelieving and heart-breaking despair. By half-time
the collective dreams of a Nation, a Team, and the Brazilian People were irreconcilably
dashed against the rocks of the cold, hard truth, that Brazil were not going to
win the World Cup in their own back yard. I can’t say that I personally saw
people in tears in the bar, but I saw too many stunned expressions to believe
that tears were not far behind.
I was hoping that the Germans would have been happy with five
goals to nil and that in the second half they would carelessly stoke the ball
around the pitch, being noble enough to understand that inflicting any further
damage on Brazil would be cruel and unusual punishment. But no, they stuffed
another couple of goals past the hapless and almost non-existent Brazilian
defence with the brutality that we all know they are capable of. The single solitary
Brazilian goal scored at the very death of the game was no real consolation, more
of a single flower of remembrance being thrown upon the grave of Brazilian
football. This was a night that will loom large in the memory of those who
watched it, and we will all collectively remember where each of us were when it
happened, a new JFK moment for the modern football fan.
A little bit of the magic and memory of this and past World
Cups, died inside me that night...... Any football that follows so closely on
the heels of the Brazilian destruction will be made somehow less relevant, and
even though we watched the Holland v Argentina game in our favourite Mexican
bar, and even though Holland finally got their comeuppance, I was somehow a
little less involved and little less passionate about the result. But all is
not lost....This morning as I write this blog post, I feel a stirring in my
lizard brain as I contemplate the Germany v Argentina World Cup Final, two fierce
rivals that have the potential to put on a show worthy of this mighty
competition. There are three more days before the final and I am calmly hoping
I can regain my World Cup mojo, or at least shake this bloody annoying
cough....
We shall just have to mark the passing of time until Sunday
when we will see which of these 2 football behemoths comes out on top.....
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