It is over! Germany won. The title has a double meaning. Yes thoughts on the World Cup Final, but also my final thoughts after 24 W C Specials for the CD Forum.

And the winner is Germany. Lisa (not THE Lisa) will be happy with the result!

Many of us watched it, so we know the facts. It was a game with two defences on top and occasional patches of end to end stuff and a good bet would have been 0-0 at full-time. Thankfully we got the winning goal in the last 4 minutes of extra time and the Final was not decided on penalties. Gotze's goal was worthy of any Final. As usual only 1-0 in a Final after 3 goals in Playoff Final.

Great skill from Gotze brought his team the trophy.

Germany were already favorites for Russia 2018 and now they go there as holders.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

It has been a fun World Cup and Chinese audiences sure got into it. I hope my articles gave a useful insight.

We saw 171 goals which equals the record set in France in 1998 (to be honest we have to thank the 10 goals let in by Brazil in their last two games for that!)

Local Chinese in Beijing get in the mood for the World Cup

It has been a mixed emotion for Brazilians: They saw their team oust rivals Chile and Columbia in tight games and got to have a say in the final weekend (not terrible out of 32 teams and England or USA would have taken that!). Yet defeats by such high margins as 6 and then 3 goals and thus losing twice in a row at home for the first time since 1940, really spoiled things. Sure Brazil are not as good as Germany and need to re-build, but the manner of exiting left fans shell-shocked. They were relieved that Germany beat home fans arch rivals Argentina, but not happy about the huge cost of staging the World Cup, fears of some stadiums becoming white elephants and the unfinished infrastructure. Many will feel that there were other needs and the World Cup hosting could have been handled in fewer venues. We should note though that the actual matches were handled efficiently.

Refereeing standards were mixed and we had the dark clouds of players with initially unpaid bonuses and then the scandal of corruption in ticket distribution. FIFA needs to look at all of these areas for 2018.

We saw the end of eras for several teams. Spain and the Netherlands will need to rebuild. England already have the nucleus of a new crop of players and, as Jose Mourinho pointed out, were unlucky to be in a group with 3 former World Cup Winners - unfortunate seeding. Pride was high in Chile, Columbia and Costa Rica, and also in the USA. Of course Messi had a great tournament for Argentina, but not quite enough. We saw that Africa and Asia need to develop their soccer further and that the 2010 World Cup in Africa has not taken things forward enough.

Finally, it has been fun doing all the posts and getting the presentation of official World Cup gear in recognition

In the China Daily headquarters - World Cup gear presented by Blog Editor Victor Nie.

I welcome any final thoughts from you all. See you next time!

By ColinSpeakman

International Educator, Economist, goal of helping to increase understanding of China by the West

 

 

(Opinions of the writer in this blog don't represent those of China Daily.)