Brazil the real winners despite spanking.

The summer of 2014 will go down as one of the most exciting and influential moments in football history. Never before has an international tournament captured the hearts, minds and souls of so many, so simultaneously and so purely. The incredible tournaments enjoyed by the fairytale teams of Colombia, Costa Rica and Chile captured the hearts of the neutral and did enough to keep even those whose respective nations met an early demise interested and embroiled in the passion that surged through Brazil unlike any other World Cup that I can recall.

Very much like hosting the world’s biggest party, there is a lot of pressure on the host nation of the biggest tournament in world football and Brazil rose to this task in fantastic fashion. With the social and economic strife that the South American nation suffers with every other day of the year seemingly swept under the carpet for the festival season of world cup football, the Brazilians put on a sublime performance of passion and respect. With a fair amount of promise and expectation on the host nation’s team it would have been understandable for the native fans to keep their praise and plaudits in reserve for Neymar Jr. and co, but so enamored with the occasion and so fanatical about the game, the home fans managed to make every game feel as important and as supported as the last. 

Brazil always felt like a home coming for football and even the most pessimistic football fan knew from the date the hosts were announced that Brazil’s historic impact on football would add to this summer and the largest nation in South America did not disappoint. Respect is always one of the hardest facets of the game to snapshot, however the Brazilian fans provided us with a few unforgettable moments that reminded the world just why Brazil is what it is in the football world. One of the more incredible moments to highlight the Brazilian’s love for the game came in their home nations darkest hour. The decimation of Brazil at the hands of eventual champions Germany was a moment of discomfort for every fan worldwide, however that distress was quelled when it became clear that the Brazilian fans were ‘ole-ing’ and cheering the European teams fantastic play as if it were there own, a true moment of clarity for any fan who would have seen that game and suffered a horrible flashback of that moment when they were on the wrong end of a game like this. We’ve all been there.

The hope is that the legacy of the2014 world cup will have a huge impact on the foundations of Brazilian football. South and Central America have had a fantastic world cup and if properly embraced and professionally dissected, the finals of the future could very well see a lot more of the Americas.

Who can wait for Russia?