巴西世界盃教給我們的十件事
As the World Cup final line-up is confirmed with Germany once again facing Argentina on the ultimate stage and after five weeks of breathtaking action, Sportsmail's ROB DRAPER looks back over what we have seen at Brazil 2014.
1) Brazil have long since ceased to be the custodians of the beautiful game
We didn’t need the humiliation of the semi final to demonstrate that, though that result will forever be cited as the point at which Brazil lost its moral authority. The sterility of the opening games and the quarter-final against Colombia, when they set out to kick a team off the pitch, did as much damage. The last Brazil team that dazzled was in 2002, with Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. Ironically it too was managed by Luiz Felipe Scolari. But, given a poorer generation of players, his cynicism simply looked brutish. Jogo Bonito has become an awful cliche which only has credibility in the minds of Nike executives who seemed to think that slick marketing and multi-million pound deals are all you need to sustain the 'brand.'
2) International football remains the peak of the game
This is sacrilege to the Premier League but the fact that it only assumes its supremacy every two years doesn't make it any less true. Note: it is not that the football is better than club football; it clearly isn't. But witness the receptions Colombia, Algeria and Costa Rica have received. Consider the fact that if Argentina win the World Cup, it will surpass anything Leo Messi has done for Barcelona. Only national teams have the power to evoke that kind of universal response from people. Clubs should not feel threatened by that. They're the lifeblood of the game once the carnival crowds depart. But the ultimate power and the glory still rests with those who achieve great things for their country.
3) Passion alone does not win you football matches
The debate between the supremacy of passion or cerebral tactics as a means to win football matches will rumble on. Essentially whichever side you’re on is a projection of your personality. Without passion, you don't get Luis Suarez's performance against England. Without tactical know-how, you don't get Costa Rica’s march through the tournament or Holland coming within a couple of penalty kicks to the final. There is a balance to be struck and most obviously Brazil got it painfully wrong when they opted to embrace the fervour of a nation and ended up overdosing on emotion, consumed by the Neymar frenzy. Passion overload brings witless football and Brazil's performance was a useful reminder.
4) Attacking football is here to stay
So Argentina and Holland did their best to buck the trend in last night’s semi-final. But the move towards positive football, initiated by Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund in Europe, has been given added impetus here by the most exciting South American teams in Chile and Colombia. Counter attack can still work - Carlo Ancelotti delivered a masterclass against Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final - but we live in an era where an awful lot of coaches choose to seize the initiative. And that just wasn’t the case ten years ago.
5) England players are still over-rated
England may not be quite as bad as their results here suggest. But even in this period of self-flagellation about how awful English football is, as a nation we still default into assuming that players that have done well for big clubs in the Premier League will be up to World Cup standard. One former leading European coach noted of the England team here: 'When it comes down to it, the first touch of most of their players is still short of the other top teams.’ That, and a lack of tactical nous and intelligence, ultimately holds back English players and until they are bothered enough about it to think about how they might improve, not much will change.
6) FIFA is finished
We didn't really need the World Cup to tell us that. But the convergence of publicity at the FIFA Congress last month simply confirmed that it represents a broken model of governance. It looks like a 20th century institution still expecting that family patronage and old-school rules will get them by. The winds of change will blow away FIFA’s current corporate structure. Either it will fall to Sepp Blatter to introduce a whirlwind of reforms - stranger things have happened - after his inevitable re-election next year (which in itself demonstrates how rotten the organisation is); or sponsors will eventually unseat the tired old man of FIFA under pressure from US lawmakers.
7) Brazil shouldn’t have hosted the World Cup
Oh, it’s been fun, the best tournament in memory, largely because of the hospitality of the people, volunteers and staff and the rich football tradition here. In some ways you want Brazil to host every World Cup. It’s just you wouldn’t want the Brazilian government and the organising committee to be left in charge. The disparity between poverty on the streets and the billions lavished on stadia, such as the Brasilia National Stadium – currently under an audit committee investigation for suspicious over-pricing issues - and the Amazon Arena in Manaus, which have been built with state subsidies and which now serve no useful purpose is plain wrong. No country without a joined-up plan as to what the World Cup will do for its people should be permitted to host it. Still, Russia and Qatar up next, so don’t hold your breath.
8) Louis van Gaal is a little bit crazy
OK, so Ron Vlaar up for the first penalty is a risk too far. But otherwise the new Manchester United manager had a good tournament. It’s not just the Tim Krul substitution for the penalties against Costa Rica, which was a little shallow in all honesty. It's the switching to a back three just before the tournament when many consider the tactic outmoded and Johan Cruyff was telling all and sundry he was a dinosaur; and switching to a back four when it was all going wrong against Australia; and using 3-4-3 against Costa Rica. There are several ways to win a football match. Van Gaal seems determined to use all of them and, if he can, all in one match.
9) The world is still a big place
Technology and globalisation make it seem small as we're all better informed, Champions League football means there are less surprises than ever. It’s easy to think we know it all not just in England but in Europe. But some of the most interesting tacticians out here were Jorge Luis Pinto, Costa Rica’s Colombian coach, Jose Perkeman, Colombia’s Argentinian coach and Jorge Sampaoli, Chile’s Argentina coach. Even within Europe, there are players outside the Champions League. There is a world outside of the Premier League and the Champions League, though with the aggressive marketing of those two competitions, it’s easy to forget.
10) The Germans got it right
Yes, it’s getting boring. We all know: the blueprint after the failure in Euro 2000, the investment in youth football, the partnership with the Bundesliga clubs. England were abject in Euro 2000 and the FA decided to resolve the problem by spending £5million a year on whoever was the most attractive manager was on the market, while the Premier League nonchalantly kept counting its cash. It’s become a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true: the Germans actually attended to the grass roots of their game and, funnily enough, they produce excellent footballers and a national team of which to be proud.世界盃還剩兩場比賽即將落幕，終極對決將在德國和阿根廷之間展開，英國《每日郵報》報體育專欄作者羅卜·德雷珀（ROB DRAPER）撰文回顧總結了本屆盃賽值得反思的十件事，全文如下：
1.巴西人已經不再是藝術足球的代言人
不需要用半決賽的慘敗去證明這個事實，7比1的結果說明了巴西已經失去了它在足球界的絕對地位。揭幕戰表現令人失望， 四分之一決賽對陣哥倫比亞，巴西費了九牛二虎之力纔拿下比賽。距離上次巴西奪冠還是2002年世界盃，當時隊裏還有裏瓦爾多，羅納爾多，羅納爾迪尼奧等大牌球星。具有諷刺意味的是，當時也是由現在的主教練斯科拉里執教的。但是，這一代球員遠不如上一代。巴西的漂亮足球似乎已經成爲了一種陳詞濫調，只有耐克高管還信任他們，仍然與他們簽訂了百萬英鎊的贊助合同。
2.國際足球比賽仍然是各類體育賽事的老大
也許這是對英超聯賽的褻瀆，但事實上就是如此。並不是說國際足球賽事會比英超俱樂部的比賽好看，但看了哥倫比亞、阿爾及利亞和哥斯達黎加所受到的待遇，你會考慮這樣一個事實：如果阿根廷贏得世界盃冠軍，那麼將超越梅西在巴薩所獲得的一切榮譽。只有國家隊的比賽才能讓普通人也異常瘋狂，但俱樂部不會爲此受到威脅，因爲一旦世界盃結束，狂歡的球迷離去，足球的主旋律就由他們演奏了。但是隻有爲國家出戰的比賽中所獲得的榮耀，纔是球員真正的榮耀。
3.僅有激情並不能讓你贏得比賽
對於戰術還是激情能贏得比賽的爭論還會繼續下去。你支持任何一方都只是你個性的反映。
沒有激情，你看不到蘇亞雷斯對戰英格蘭的神奇表現；沒有戰術安排，你看不到哥斯達黎加一路過關斬將；沒有範加爾最後時刻的換門將，你也看不到荷蘭通過門將神奇地贏下點球大戰。必須打破這個平衡，激情和戰術都是需要的，巴西人就沒有把握好這一點，欣然接受整個國家對足球的熱情，過分沉溺於個人情感，一點點地消耗的內馬爾的激情與狂熱。過多的激情沒能帶來精彩的足球，巴西的表現給全世界都提了個醒。
4.攻勢足球在此停留
攻勢足球似乎是停滯不前了，防守反擊拉開了主旋律，所以阿根廷和荷蘭在半決賽中，把主要的精力都放在了防守上。但足球要積極向上的發展，還是得看攻勢足球（比如巴塞羅那和多特蒙德的比賽）。本屆世界盃最激動人心的還是南美球隊智利和哥倫比亞。防守反擊仍然奏效，安切洛蒂帶領的皇家馬德里在歐冠半決賽中對陣拜仁慕尼黑，大師級的防守反擊給我們留下了深刻的印象，但我們還是生活在這樣一個時代，很多教練需要去抓住場上主動權，但在十年前，不是這樣的。
5.人們對英格蘭球員仍然期望過高
英格蘭的球員並不是和他們的比賽結果那樣糟糕。但即使是在一個全民吐槽英格蘭足球的時代，我們仍然默認英格蘭球員非常的出色，因爲他們大都爲英超俱樂部踢球，都是國際水準的。一位前英格蘭隊的歐洲教練指出:“當歸結英格蘭的失利，大部分球員還是第一次參加世界盃，比賽經驗不如其他頂級球隊。”加上戰術體系的缺失，最終使得持有很多英超球員也無濟於事。他們有足夠的時間去思考如何改進，但沒有太大改變。
6.國際足聯完蛋了
我們不需要世界盃來告訴我們這些，但是國際足聯代表大會已經驗證了FIFA破碎的管理模式。國際足聯看起來就像20世紀的機構，仍然期望贊助和制定的規則也是過時的。國際足聯的內部的不合理結構早晚會改變的。國際足聯主席布拉特將會帶領足聯開始改革，在他連任之後，一些改革已經出現了（這本身就說明了該組織是腐敗的）。或許贊助商在美國國會議員的壓力下，將最終推翻這個國際足聯疲憊的老人。
7.巴西本不應該舉辦世界盃
有趣的是，記憶中最好的世界盃，很大程度上就是因爲當地人，志願者和工作人員的熱情好客，和當地豐富的足球傳統。在一些方面，你想要巴西舉辦每一屆世界盃，而且你不希望巴西政府和國際足協插手干預。在巴西街頭你就能看到巨大的貧富差距，無法想象，政府還在揮霍金錢，建個球場還要花費數十億，比如巴西利亞國家體育場。目前，審計委員會已介入調查，該工程存在定價過高的問題。瑪瑙斯的亞馬遜競技體育場由國家補貼建造，現在沒有任何用途，簡直就是在浪費。一個國家連個施工整體的計劃都沒有，怎麼能勝任舉辦國的任務，世界盃舉辦國應該給當地人帶來些什麼。接下來，俄羅斯和卡塔爾將舉辦世界盃，所以不要屏住呼吸，糾結這個問題了。
8.範加爾有點瘋狂
讓弗拉爾踢第一粒點球的確很瘋狂，簡直就是在冒險。但是總的來說，這位曼聯的新主帥，世界盃之旅可圈可點，還是帶來了精彩的表現。不僅僅是最後時候的神奇換人，換上蒂姆·克魯爾去撲哥斯達黎加的點球。還有在賽前使用過時的三後衛戰術，在對陣澳大利亞的比賽中用四後衛，對陣哥斯達黎加改用3-4-3陣型。以多種戰術贏球，範加爾似乎就是下定決心將這些戰術策略通通地用一遍，或者，如果有機會，他可以在一場比賽中用完所有的戰術。
9.世界仍然是個大舞臺
科技的進步和全球化的進程使世界變得越來越小，我們能更好地獲取比賽信息，冠軍聯賽比起以往，都少了很多的驚喜。我們看到的不僅是英格蘭人的表演，還有歐洲人的表演，還有一些其他洲的球員的精彩表演，比如說哥斯達黎加的主教練平託（哥倫比亞），哥倫比亞隊的主教練佩克爾曼（阿根廷），智利隊的主教練聖保利（阿根廷）。在歐洲還有一些球員無法踢冠軍盃，在英超聯賽和冠軍聯賽外，還有另一個世界，還有更多的精彩。雖然這兩個比賽宣傳力度很大，但是還是很容易就會被人忘記。
10.德國人是正確的
我們都知道德國隊在2000年歐洲盃上失利後，與德甲俱樂部合作，大力投資青年足球。英格蘭在2000年歐洲盃上也表現的很糟糕，而英格蘭足協卻決定通過每年支出500萬英鎊花在教練身上，來解決這個問題，英超聯賽還若無其事地計算着在足球上花費的錢。事實證明：德國將足球轉變成爲了平民遊戲，產生優秀的足球運動員和值得驕傲的足球教練。
