THE 20th competition of the FIFA World Cup, the tournament for the football World Championship, draws the final curtain tonight thru’ a clash between the titans-Argentina and Germany — for the title. Amidst the fear of uncertainty of the infrastructure constructions and protests against arranging the World Cup by subtracting expenditures in the health and education sectors, the Brazilians overwhelmingly hosted the greatest earth show possible. The host-nation who won more World Cups than any other football-playing nation was unfortunately humiliated by Germany in the semifinals.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup began on 12 June with a group stage and concludes today with the final. A total of 32 nations have been playing for the championship title from the group stage to the final involving millions of fans across the globe. The World Cup mania, fan frenzy, off-track gossips, controversy over referees to player’s performance, players’ girl friends, gestures of coaches, pains and gains of fans have obsessed the world since the show kicked off.
The feat that Brazil has pulled off is remarkable and the world should be thankful for it presenting such an event to the world, despite the presence of several drawbacks. The World Cup has widely been hailed as a sporting success and the hundreds of thousands of fans in Brazil have roundly applauded the warmth of the Brazilian people and the lively party atmosphere. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said, “We showed that our people know how to have good interaction not only among ourselves but with the foreigners that we received as well.” Many football fans are calling this one of the best World Cups in decades; given the high-level of play on the field and lack of serious hitches in logistics for fans as they made their way to stadiums.
Brazilian authorities arranged Rio de Janeiro’s largest ever security measures deploying more than 25,000 security personnel in the city for the tournament’s final match between Germany and Argentina. Heads of State, including German leader Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin, are going to attend the match. About 75,000 fans are expected to watch the final at Rio’s Maracana stadium.
The World Cup has generated various controversies; most have centered around officiating, with international referees including Yuichi Nishimura, Milorad Mažic, Enrique Osses, Peter O’Leary, Ravshan Irmatov, and assistant Humberto Clavijo coming under criticism for their performances. In the field, Uruguay striker Luis Suárez bit the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini in a group match between Uruguay and Italy and that went viral in the social media. Injuries of Brazilian superstar Neymar Jr with Celli led to the country’s defeat with Germany that pushed them off the field in the final.
Despite the humiliating defeat with Germany and the presence of cheering arch rival Argentine football fans around the stadiums and cities, the football-loving fans in Brazil though deeply hurt by the defeat but they kept the wound within themselves and showed calm and grace in the true spirit of FIFA.
We congratulate in advance the champions and urge FIFA to investigate the serious issues like bad refereeing and seemingly preplanned attacks on rival players.
