Eight matches. That is it, just eight matches remain in the 2014 World Cup. Time sure flies when you are having fun.
The group stages have come and gone, and, before we realised it, so had the round of 16. Like an hourglass draining of its last, rapidly disappearing grains, the World Cup party in Brazil is almost up.
“But wait,” I hear you say. “What about the last eight, the semi-finals and the greatest show on earth, the World Cup final? Is that not what the whole thing is about?”
For many football fans, this is what is called in the industry the “business end” of the tournament. The best have separated themselves from the rest. Thank you underdogs, it has been lovely having you along, but it is time for the big boys to claim what is rightfully theirs.
But is this really what makes the World Cup what it is? For some of us, the answer is an emphatic “no”. The World Cup is about gorging yourself on football. We will take the feast over the gourmet cuisine every time.
It is about quantity over quality which, happily in Brazil, have been offered in equal measures.
The group stage accounts for 48 matches out of the total of 64, a hefty 75 per cent. It is where the majority of the action takes place and most of the goals are scored. Add the round-of-16 matches and we have seen 56 games in 20 days.
For the football junkies among us, that is close enough to three matches a day. The rest of the competition promises us eight matches in 12 days, at a miserly 0.75 matches, or 60 minutes, per day. Frankly, this is a rip off.
The second round of group matches represents the pinnacle of excitement and inclusivity.
A time of unconfined optimism, when every team still had something to play for. Even Spain, England and Portugal had hope back then.
Most teams attacked with gleeful abandon.
It is at the third, and last, round of group matches that fantasy football begins to give way to pragmatism. Mathematical permutations, draws rather than wins, resting players for the knockout stages and dead rubbers.
In the round of 16, teams punching above their weight are rewarded with big ties against group winners. This time, minus the element of surprise. Overwhelmingly, the group winners have advanced to the last eight at Brazil 2014.
The quarter-finals still promise some heavyweight clashes – in particular, the all-South-American Brazil against Colombia, and all-European Germany versus France.
As we await those matches, the minor characters who brought so much excitement to Brazil have departed. No more Algeria and Ghana. No more Alexis Sanchez or Guillermo Ochoa.
Group results and performances mean nothing now. It is all about getting results. Playing for penalties increasingly becomes a game plan. But the undeniable euphoria that a shoot-out win brings comes at a price: 15 of 20 teams to advance on penalties at all World Cups were eliminated in the next round, including the last eight. Brazil, you have been warned.
Day by day, the cast list has been diminishing as fans pack up their flags and face paint to return home. Fifa and the organising committee must have wept with joy that Chile failed to knock out Brazil. The sense of anticlimax among home fans had they not might have dealt the tournament a fatal blow.
In Hollywood, they say that by the time the Oscar for best picture is handed out, at the end of the Academy awards, the room is full of losers. Similarly, this stage of the tournament has a melancholic, end-of-summer feeling. Even with the championship still to come.
Cynics will complain that the group stages showcase too many weak teams and that has been the case in the past. Yet few fans can complain about the performances of the so-called smaller teams this time.
Brazil 2014 also has been a reminder that, even in the age of blanket football coverage and social media, the World Cup still has the power to spring wondrous surprises.
The football world is talking about James Rodriguez, Keylor Navas and John Brooks, names not many casual fans would have heard of three weeks ago.
In eight matches, it is likely that Brazil captain Thiago Silva, Germany’s Philip Lahm or Robin van Persie of the Netherlands will be hoisting the Fifa World Cup at the Maracana.
In hindsight, it will all seem so predictable. It was not always so. Not in Brazil. Not in those wonderful, early days of the 2014 World Cup finals.
akhaled@thenational.ae
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