Nope, I haven’t forgotten about this.
(Can I get a drumroll, please?)
The winner of the first BFB World Cup Predictions Game is…
Category:
World Cup
The World Cup is over and now the debates begin about Messi, roiling tempests that reduce the actual winner of the tournament to a seeming afterthought.
And they are so predictable that it’s almost lazy, as if by rote the same lines are drawn by the same groups of people:
— Look at the stats. He’s the best.
— He failed on the big stage, so he isn’t the GOAT.
— Y’all need to leave him alone, he is still the GOAT.
— Etc, etc, ad infinitum.
The truth is that there is no truth. It’s all immaterial.
Read MoreGOATS, success, failure and Lionel Messi, aka “Be here now.”
Prepare for 2014/15 with the Best Barca Apps
The World Cup was a tumultuous time for Barcelona fans. Spain exited the tournament after losing two games with only a nonsensical 3-0 win over Australia being the only high point. We didn’t get to see the brilliance of Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets and Alba in the light we expected to. But they weren’t the major disappointments of the tournament.
Initiating the signing of Luis Saurez was meant to be a wondrous occasion but then came that ill fated moment with Chiellini – a moment that will be remembered by all football fans across the globe. Unfortunately or fortunately for Barca fans, this somewhat helped push through his transfer to Spain and although this moment marred his World Cup, we did however get to see him single handedly demolish England – showing the world that he truly belongs among the world’s elite.
Read MoreForget Last Season and the World Cup, 2014/15 will be Barca’s Season
Iniestazo… azo… AZO! Or, as Jose Antonio Camacho, former Madridista and Spain left back exclaimed: “Iniesta de my vida”. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I won’t say the World Cup final degenerated into an awful spectacle of fouling and anti-football, because in order to have degenerated into that, it would have had to have started out better. Regardless, La Furia Roja took home their first Jules Rimet trophy, and were the more worthy team in having done so. Please join me won’t you, for one final review before we move back into the realm of the club. Once more into the breach.
It is hard for me to continually write intros for these things. But this round of games, wow. It is rare that games incorporate excitement; open discussions of the ethics of punishment, utilitarianism, and the greater good; and brutal emotions usually not laid bare by such matters. So here we are, 4 teams left, every one of them gets 2 more games, although 1 of those games might be less important than the others. So come on in, and enjoy it, won’t you?
32 teams in, 24 teams down. Whereas the First Round proved a fitting, if up-and-down beginning, the Round of 16 have basically held the course with interesting and intense games, but with the favorites winning in nearly every situation. However, this would not be a World Cup without controversy, and we have it in spades. Plus the US going out, Ghana moving forward, and South America still representing. So join me, won’t you?
The Round of 16 is set. Half the teams are gone and the hand-wringing is beginning back home for those boys. A few shocks are sticking around and this is shaping up to be the most wide open Round of 16 in a very long time. But enough of all this, let’s get to the recaps Luke.
