The World Cup

The World Cup is now over and Germany has won.

It has been the best world cup I have watched since the 1986 finals in Mexico.

We saw attacking teams win in the group stage. Every team which tried to park the bus lost!

This ( and the lack of cards as demanded by FIFA which this Referee disagrees with) meant more goals scored during the group stage than for some time. Even the draws were mostly great to watch.

The goals certainly dried up when the second round came but this always occurs. We still had attacking teams winning.

There was no stand out team in this cup. Germany were lucky but worthy winners. One would have said the same thing if Argentina had have won. Unfortunately we did not see Messi at his best in this tournament. He has not been in great form for around 6 months so it was expecting a bit for him to be like Maradona was in 1986 . He was more like Maradona in 1990!

Teams such as Brazil and Holland were a travesty to their culture. No Joga Bonita no total football. A number of coaches reputations went backwards.

Australia had a lot of encouraging signs. Ange took over way too late but we played well in the first two games with out youthful inexperience costing us all the goals. It was unfortunate that whilst we didn't have a lot of talent to choose from we had injuries to vital players just at the wrong time.

however we played well and with lick could have had two wins. As with most inexperienced youthful teams we could pick ourselves for the third time and got well beaten by Spain however I am looking forward to both the Asian cup in Australia next January and then the World Cup in Russia in four years time.