Estádio Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, 14th July 2014, Brazil, is where it all went down. The world’s most followed sport, Football, with its final match; the FIFA World cup took place in the midst of the South American continent. Millions of fans filled the stadium in vast numbers, many took to streets and bars; poor people like us took to television. The stadium started filling up prior to the disastrous closing ceremony (mind you which had mostly Afro-American children in tight coloured clothing. Go world peace!). The odd thing though was the way the Brazilian fans showed up in their yellow jerseys suffering from a moral conundrum of whom to support (hey…pssst…Argentina) and for obvious reasons were less inclined towards Hitler’s brethren.
The Copa-Cabana beach you could also say, started filling up by mid-morning with only Argentinian fans swarming all over to form a mini-Buenos Aires, you know, with the influx of eating, opening shops, cheering, beer and starting a family, herding sheep…and somewhere down the line, watching the match. The closing ceremony was far too loud and extravagant with no taste to it, looked more like the opening ceremony of the Asian youth games. Probably the only performances worth watching were by Shakira and Santana, the rest, was pure bull. Not even worth a mention. Then came in the official world cup, gorgeous as it may be, carried by the retired Spanish football legend; Carles Puyol and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Caroline Bündchen (oh my my…how the world ogled!)
So low and behold it was kick-off time! The match began with the whistle from Italian referee Nicola Rizzoli (who I being a German supporter found to be just a tad bit annoying…to the point of pulling my hair-out. Nothing much) and both sides took off! The first half, as was evident worked more in the favour of the Argentinian national team with their defence being impenetrable and daunting attack, Messi taking full advantage of his God-given gift. Ripping through the German defence but lacking that vigour to take them down. Having missed many an opportunity, like the wide shot from Higuain in the first few minutes, the off-side given to a goal by Argentina and the open shot by Messi (2nd half) should have given them 3 goals in hand if it were not for silly mistakes. Likewise, Germany also did attack in the first 45 minutes but not with much life-force; for instance that brilliantly placed corner by Kroos should have been a goal only if Howdes wouldn’t have caught the side post.
The second half, however was for most of it, in the German hands, with an unbreakable defence and a suddenly aggressive attacking scheme they had on (perhaps a word or two from Loew…and by that I mean he probably threatened to take their beer away…just saying). During the end of the second half came on Gotze replacing Klose, for whom this was the last World Cup (standing ovation to this legend). The match however, was never a drag, many ups and downs kept fans on their feet. It finally wrapped up when Gotze scored the winning goal way into the 2nd half of the extra time, 113th minute and ended with a brutal free-kick miss from Messi after he decided that probably that there was no point to it after all.
And oh! How could I miss the now-famous Streaker-dude Vitaly Zdorovetskiy (hey! Macarena!) Whose video was recorded only by LeBron James while the other camera crew turned away (Messi was smiles, okay?! Got a little bro-on-bro thing going on), Natural Born Prankster, Yo!
Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian president was just sitting there all like, “must chalk out a new plan to win the elections…must take over Brazil again!”
Then the tiny things like Rihanna lifting up her top after Germany’s goal (Cleavage alert!), Beckham’s entire family, the Bachans, Pele et al were present as well.
Finally came the award ceremony. And the most un-deserved golden ball goes to – Lionel Messi! It’s true, James Rodríguez from Colombia had more goals and assists in a lesser period of time (2 assists and 6 goals in 400 minutes)…but for publicity it went to Messi. Oh well. Golden Glove to Neuer and Golden Teeth to Suarez! *insert sly smile*
The trophy lift was absolutely magical; the entire German squad was holding that Golden figurine in their hands, jumping with joy alongside a cheering crowd and their goddess-like spouses. And to close it all, I’d like to give away a few awards personally to the players:
1. Best Ek Villain Award – Zuniga ( Person who injured Neymar)
2. Best Thakur Award – Neymar (Disabled dude who couldn’t save his family)
3. Best Drama Queen/ Mina Kumari Award – David Luiz (well, for obvious reasons)
4. Super Man Award – Bastian Schweinsteiger ( For oh so heroically falling and getting beat up like a 5 year old in kindergarten at least a hundred but still standing tall just to finish off the enemy, total Salman Khan Style!)
So, that’s it folks, my summary of the world cup final. Let me know if I missed anything, like the fact that I didn’t mention how Christ the Redeemer was lit up in the German colours post the match and the numerous yellow cards that flew about….oh well. Freilos!
