Bigger is Not necessarily better

MANAUS BRAZIL – The mighty has fallen at the 2014 FIFA World Cup here in Brazil and today (Wednesday at press time) in Manaus we will watch Switzerland and Honduras battle with lots on the line for what could be a clean sweep for the South American teams ni term of advancing to the KO Stage.

But the big news at World Cup Brazil thus far is that Spain, Italy, and England have been sent packing from the tournament after with 12 of the 16 teams already qualified for the Round 16 KO stage. However to this point the only teams with unblemished records are Netherlands, and Columbia. Argentina, France and Belgium have 2 wins but still have one game left to play.

It means that tournament favourites such as Brazil and Germany have faltered and it makes the competition interesting. There is definitely a different style of play here than what I watched in 2006 at Germany or at e 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

So much so that even the crème of the crop of the Spain’s La Liga, the Italian Series A or the English Premier League could not survived the attacking brand that are being generated by the passionate fans at the Stadiums in Brazil.

The early rounds of the group stage seemed to be all about offense with most of the teams pushing forward. It is a philosophy that Netherlands and Chile utilized to eliminate Spain as the Chileans never stopped pressing forward even after scoring the first goal for the 2-0 win that eliminated Spain.

While many were hopeful that Spain as the defending champion would have survived the opening loss as was the case in South Africa I certainly did not see that happening after watching Spain’s history of dominating teams with little or nothing to show in terms of significant goal separation in the final scoore.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is living up to its billing for exciting and entertaining football/soccer. Attacks and counter attacks are the order of the day. In the 40 games played thus far there have only been 4 goalless draws which is the reason why the teams with the offensive players will be the ones very much in contention at the end.

Spain managed a 3-0 consolation win over Australia before packing their bags but England could only manage a scoreless tie against Costa Rica while Italy finished its group schedule with a 1-0 loss to Uruguay. It is the second consecutive World Cup that Italy has not survived the group stage.

Now we are beginning to understand why most football/soccer enthusiast was intrigued about being a part of the World Cup in Brazil where entertaining football originated

It is where the blue print for exciting football was invented and why the country has won an unprecedented five World Cups.

As it stands now the offensive players who are helping their team win are Brazil’s Neymar Jr, Lionel Messi (Argentina)i, Karim Benzemar (France,) Thomas Mueller (Germany), Robin Van Persie, and Arjen Robben of Netherlands.

They have all scored huge goals that allowed their respective team to secure a relatively easier passage to the Round of 16 KO Stage.

But in moving forward nothing is going to come easy for any of these so called big name teams.