Five of the Best: World Cup Matches

Article by Pete Bancroft (@Pete_Allsports)

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The 2014 World Cup is over and Germany have been crowned as very worthy champions. The final itself was fitting for a tournament that ranged from the sublime to the forgettable but here are five of the best games that will be remembered long after Lionel Messi's atrocious last minute free kick is forgotten.

Costa Rica 1 - 0 Italy

England needed a favour from Italy: to dispatch the group’s minnows, scoring a few goals in the process. Unfortunately Costa Rica showed that their win against Uruguay was far from a fluke as they took the lead and then held the Italians at bay with some ease. Not a classic in terms of quality but a bona fide victory for well drilled tactical coaching from Jorge Luis Pinto. Costa Rica finished the tournament without losing a game in normal time and conceded just 2 goals. Not bad for the group D whipping boys.

Brazil 1 - 1 Chile

The best example of a team channelling the collective will of a nation in the hope of a positive result. Sadly for Brazil it wasn't them and sadly for Chile, despite messages of support from the trapped miners amongst others, it wasn't quite enough as they lost on penalties. They played brilliantly as a unit and were the epitome of a team greater than the sum of its parts. They were so unlucky not to have snatched it in extra time when Pinilla’s shot crashed back off the woodwork but were great value all the same.

Belgium 2 – 1 USA

Hollywood style football where the action on the pitch was only exceeded by the massive over-reaction from the Americans off it! A pulsating, scintillating game which was incredibly open and a statisticians dream in terms of chances and saves. Heroics from the US keeper Tim Howard couldn’t quite stop the Belgians but were enough to earn a congratulatory phone call from President Obama. Lord only knows what would have happened if they'd actually won! US fans came to Brazil in their masses. Maybe the country has finally taken 'soccer' to its heart. How good could they become if this is the case?

Holland 5 - 0 Spain With all that subsequently followed it is easy to forget the second most shocking result of the tournament. Going into the game Spain were many peoples favourites for the World Cup and the Netherlands were tipped as potentially failing to get out of the group stage. This was a young Dutch squad with considerably less talent than those assembled for previous tournaments. But with youth came unity and energy that, coupled with the attacking guile of Robben and Van Persie, proved too much for a Spanish team in decline. The death of tiki-taka, the end of a golden generation or the birth of a new shade of Oranje? Only time will tell.

Germany 7 (seven) - 1 Brazil

What. Just. Happened?

So devastating were the Germans in the first half that the source of most activity in the second came from sports psychologists brushing up their CV’s and Paris Saint-Germain lawyers looking for a loophole in David Luiz’s contract! 5 up by the interval with a 4 scored in 6 minutes, the Germans professed to taking their foot off the gas in the second half to save Brazilian embarrassment.

It is hard to know if Germany were that good because Brazil simply imploded. Even without Thiago Silva and Neymar they should have been better and you suspect that the damage inflicted by the defeat may be terminal for the international careers of some of the South Americans.

Regardless of the one sided nature of the result, football fans were treated to something amazing and a piece of record breaking history being made. None will forget the massacre and even those who saw their teams exit earlier in the tournament will be glad that it didn’t happen to them.

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