2014 FIFA World Cup™ (Article) 

The Netherlands national football team lost their 750th Official (30-04-1905) KNVB’s international game last Wednesday night (09-06-2014). This against Argentina in the final shoot-out penalties. An extremely boring endeavour it was…again, trying to break down heavily build foreign compact defences (ARG-CRC-MEX), in an overall ‘non risk taking‘ and ‘un-dutch school’ (un-total football/un tempo football) way. The possibility to become the 5th nation in history to reach a World Cup final for the 4th time disappeared in just simply seconds after Ron Vlaars’ 1st penalty miss…. – Germany (8x – 3 WC titles), Brazil (7x – 5 WC titles), Italy (6x – WC 4 titles), Argentina (4x – WC 2 titles), Netherlands (3x – 0 WC titles – 3 lost finals) ….”An unadventurous and unattacking game with an overload of VanGaal’s (LvG) unclear tactical assignments in which resulted in a 240min (+Costa Rica) non-scoring Dutch side”…Agreed Mehmet Scholl. Game over….but Holland you were Awesome!

203 Teams from 6 confederations went into 2014 FIFA World Cup™ challenge, where 32 nations compete for the title in the Final Competition with over more then 2.2 BILLION viewers, and we made it to the last 4 again. Boy!…we did have a lot of fun (Instagram Video of 2-1 Mexico in Berlin tension release jump!!) for 3 weeks: 6 Games, 12 goals, and 59 attempts on target…..And what did we play well against a ‘good for non boring football’, and ‘non-defensive, attacking side’ of Spain (VIDEO) (VIDEO) (Match of the Day) (Pang! In the face!), Australia (VIDEO), Chile (VIDEO) and the last 15min. against Mexico (VIDEO). Yes we were we all sucked into the ‘Orange fever’ (including myself) (NED-ARG: 9.05 million highest telecast rating in Dutch history – more then half of the Netherlands – PDF), football fan or not, inland and abroad, the fever got to us……Van Persie’s ‘flying Dutchman’ header, Leroy Fer’s 77’ mightily leap header above the Chilean defence, Sneijder’s 88’ close range blast, and Huntelaar’s ‘like the elixir of life’ 93’ stoppage-time penalty in Fortaleza’s 39°C heat against Mexico, Robben’s 20’ halfway line run goal against Australia, his ‘Messi’ like dribbling throughout the 6 games, and of course the 37km/h. fastest (Record) (Article) 5th goal run against Sergio Ramos Spain (30,6 km/h)….

Yes, we were close to win that final 4 yrs ago against Spain at the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, and now close again to reach the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ final. And have a 2nd chance at our very 1st FIFA World Cup™ Cup win….but eeeh! This summer the Dutch played with a complete new LvG formation (4-2-3-1 to 5-4-2) then 4 yrs. ago. This formation, heavily criticised by the Dutch Media even before the tournament started. A tailor made system build around Sneijder, Van Persie, Robben, De Jong and Kuijt. This with 7+ more talented Feyenoord, PSV and Ajax Academy youth players like Cillessen (25),Blind (24), Kongolo (20), Depay (20),Clasie (25), Janmaat (24), DeVrij (22),Indi (22),Lens (26),Fer (24), Wijnaldum (23) and late bloomer Vlaar (29) were added. All from the highest Dutch echelon football league called: The Eredivisie…

Yes, the in ‘International media’ over discussed penalty keeper substitute (calculated risk), Arrogant Van Gaal (yes, we find him arrogant in Holland too), Goalie Krul’s last minute resort theatrics (was too much indeed), Robben’s annoying dives (we already knew that and yes, the Dutch hate it too – VIDEO), KLM’s true media blunder (article), and Michael van Praag’s rant to the FIFA (article). I will all take that for granted…“Hoge Bomen vangen nou eenmaal altijd veel wind”, literally translated ‘High trees catch a lot of wind’ ??) We still have the Brons game on saturday, annoying. (Right Seth Meyers! – VIDEO), a bit of a useless game indeed but the real matter of the fact is that Brons will be always Brons.. (Netherlands beats host Brazil 3-0 to finish 3rd – VIDEO) 

Summary:

Lood om oud ijzer’? – it’s all the same to me, ‘Six of one or half a dozen of the other‘…..Small Country yes (‘Calimero complex’), simply not good enough? maybe….Bad game preparations?, non perfectional (?) /professional enough for long tournaments?..but they did well, our squad/team did well…Let’s not forget the US’ undying support…(Wall street journal) Thank you! 

Germany: 

Let’s hope for in the sake of the game, that Germany will win the 2014 FIFA World Cup™, because the only team that sticked to own play consistency football was them: “The Passing, free running, positional play, and the way the goalkeeper is used, in terms of real football they are standing above all.” Agreed Johan Cruyff. 

What have we achieved?

Worst of what I picked up at this specific World Cup was instead of creating positive harmony between it’s players, nations, culture and game-play, I saw continues camera close ups of kids and people crying (new form of direct emotion??). Also the weird creation of a new form nationalistic driven disrespectful online meming and cyber bullying, where we found ourselves cheering defeat and sadness…..

In my opinion the 2014 FIFA World Cup failed in all aspects of what ‘football’ the World Cup stood for: ‘For the Game, for the World’, what a joke. Not only did it cost $14 billion (1/3 in stadiums) ($18 billion Olympics – RIO 2016) for Brazil to have their worst nightmare come true (Argentina made it to he final), and of course it’s taxpayers are picking up the biggest bill. And after being forced from a 7-1 loss to Germany, Brazil’s reexamination of it’s entire Brazilian identity/culture and way of life??? (Thankx Mesut Özil & Lukas Podolski) What is the real life fun in that? We all knew Brazil was a nation that loved ‘FUTEBOL’ and produces 201million strikers where nobody wants to be a defender! But Hey…. but that’s Sports right? You can’t calculate: bad luck?? (what statistics stated).

7 years have passed since Brazil won the right to host this World Cup. In a country where 20% lives in extreme poverty and 13 million are malnourished. The Brazilian government had $14 billion invested in the World Cup. And 0.6 billion more in what has become the most expensive security operation of a World Cup ever: 170,000 security professionals, including 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 private security guards.

Monday July14th, Brazil will be left with a fifth of the projects undone, FIFA’s Ray Whelan $90m ticking scandal, the world’s costliest stadiums like Manaus, Natal, Cuiaba and the capital Brasilia with third-tier teams supporting them and therefore won’t be even be profitable. Same as in South Africa…Worst of all: the 95% recycled Manaus Stadium – in the middle of the Amazon – costs €200 million (paid by BNDES), with no future purpose after the cup at all. And Don’t forget the current dilapidated public transport improvement promises that where made to the Brazilian people and will never happen…(One-to-watch: VICE News: The Other Side of Brazil’s World Cup)

Who wins?

The Zurich-based FIFA…. earning €3.2billion (TV income, commercial deals through sponsoring, hospitality packages, merchandise and ticket sales), on top excluded €250 million tax exemption for all it’s members. The FIFA will leave yet another nation prosperous. Weird for a non-profit with already a ‘reserve’ of €1billion in the bank. And the 32 national football associations that joined this years 2014 FIFA World Cup™ stand by and do nothing. On to Qatar folks! #longwaytogo

Undersigned,

An impartial Dutchman, living abroad…

(Photograph: KNVB/NIKE)