The curtain has come down and the 2014 football World Cup is now over with Germany clinching the victory. Expectations before the tournaments of this great quadrennial event were otherwise high about regional countries becoming the winner of the World Cup this year in Brazil. Even during the earlier proceedings of the game, a number of Latin American national teams like those of Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay, besides the region's big names like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, demonstrated their impressive performance. A good number of African teams have also shown their footballing prowess. However, Latin America, being quite successful in the past having won nine of the previous 19 World Cups, was widely considered to be the favourite this time. This is largely because of the fact that no national team outside the region had ever won the World Cup in tournaments held in any Latin American country. But German have proved themselves to be unbeatable this time in Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã Stadium -- the venue of the final match. They defeated Argentina by a lone goal in a tense game. Millions of football-lovers around the globe watched the final match, enjoying its moment in high spirits.
Football is still the most popular sport in most parts of the world. Though Asia has not yet been quite successful to show any of its high-quality footballing ability, the soccer fans in this populous continent are the highest in number across the globe. Europe is the main driver of the development of football as a sporting event, though Latin America is still known to be the region of what is called 'natural football', being imbued with a sense of pride and self-belief as far as the game is concerned. Africa is also fast coming up on the scene, having developed its own assertive character and natural skill in footballing. In Europe, there is less about the 'cult of the individual' and more about the team 'spirit' or 'ethic', centring football.
Again, it is noteworthy that football has been commercialised to a large extent, mostly in Europe. In England, Italy, Spain, Portugal etc., football thrives on commercial motives and revenue earnings, with successful clubs participating in Premier League or other similiar championships, becoming money-spinners. And such clubs are owned even by foreigners or outsiders and mostly being run on corporate principles. Sport, politics and culture are also getting inter-sected, influencing each other in the process. And now the World Cup transfers that have become a footballing tradition will see another round of striking changes taking place at great premiums, particularly in Europe, after the finale of the 20th World Cup event.
The commercialisation of football on a grand scale gives, however, no good signal about what this "natural" game should otherwise be. Considered from this angle, a World Cup can, perhaps, reveal only what a player is capable of. But that is not, by itself, so interesting. What matters here is a player's normal performance, week in, week out. A tournament is a simple sample of games on which to judge a player. As such, a brief tournament in unrepeatable circumstances does not show the consistent normal performance of a player or a team over a reasonable period of time to rank him or it on the basis of a sound rationale. The developments during the World Cup 2014 should, therefore, be considered not as any extra gloss. Rather the abiding spirit lies here in pursuit of efforts for flourishment of natural talent of both individual players and their respective teams in a continuous process.
