Soccer From Across the Pond

With the FIFA 2014 Football World Cup due to start in Brazil, two weeks today, and the Hockey season coming to a close, I thought it a perfect time to write a few posts throughout the tournament. Firstly, this will in no way effect my usual Hockey coverage, the Football post will be an added bonus. Secondly, unlike the Hockey posts, I will not be making game-by-game reviews or post match analysis during Brazil 2014. Instead it will be more of a reflection of my thoughts and memories from past World Cup tournaments.

At the tender age of 12, the first World Cup I watched avidly was USA 1994. It was a tournament that I will never forget. Brazil were worthy champions and Italy, led by Roberto Baggio deservedly made the final. However it was two un-fancied sides from the Balkans that lit up the tournament.

Romania, with Gheorghe Hagi in the form of his life, surprised both Colombia and Argentina as they made their way to the quarter finals. While, neighbours Bulgaria, had the tournament joint-leading goal scorer Hristo Stoichkov, who helped eliminate Germany before losing to Italy in the semi-finals.

There were many more memories throughout and over the next few weeks I will be sharing many of them. It's hard to believe that was twenty years ago now.

Four years later, I was studying for my GCSE exams but instead of revising, I was spending all my time watching France 1998. It was billed as the biggest and best World Cup before a ball had even been kicked, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Although the hosts winning did spoil it some what for me, what went on in the four weeks before the final was possibly football at its best.

As each year goes on, the more I fall out of love with football. Such is the amount of money involved now, the sport has become a much more results-driven entity and therefore instead of playing to win, teams are playing not to get beat. Back in the 1990s teams would line up in a standard 4-4-2 formation. That often meant teams played with two wingers, an attacking midfielder, two strikers and only one holding/defensive midfielder! scoring goals for fun and entertaining us with the style of football as they did it. Now teams play more negative in a 4-2-3-1 formation. It means two holding midfielders and only one forward, meaning less goals and more boredom. Whenever I see teams lining up this way I instantly want to switch to another channel and not watch the game as you know its going to terrible to watch. So with that in mind I can re-live the 'good old days' when football was well, football and enjoy the memories.