The player of the tournament for me has been Messi. No doubt about that! Huge Expectations - Team mates, especially the fellow attackers, performing poorly - opponents parking the buses - pressure getting increased - but still producing the magic to help Argentina get to the final. There is no other player who have received more Man Of The Match (MOTM) awards in the tournament. Messi had 2-3 defenders on him at all times, did any of the other players get defended that heavily? Haters may say he didn’t score in knock out stages, except for against some weak group opponents. Okay, please rethink does there any weak team really exist in the world cup after all these extremely hard qualifying campaigns? If you still think there are, then Costa Rica says Hi to you! Nigeria (one of Argentina’s group opponents) lost to Ghana in penalties in this year’s African Nations Cup (2014) semi-final, okay Ghana – another poor team? Well, that Ghana were the only team that the eventual winner Germany couldnt beat in this tournament. Besides, they were the only team that were leading Germany in this tournament for a certain period of time in this tournament. And where did Ghana finish? They couldnt make it to the knock-out stages. Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified to the world cup directly from the most toughest zone – Europe, where they topped Greece in their group, who went back home after losing on penalties from second round. Okay you may laugh at Greece but you just can’t ignore when teams like France, Portugal, Ukraine, Croatia, Romania, Sweden, Iceland fought against each other after failing to grab a direct qualification spot that off course Bosnia and Herzegovina did and Romania did not even qualify to play the qualifying round. Only Germany, Netherlands and England scored more goals than Bosnia and Herzegovina in the qualifying round while only six teams out of fifty three in the whole Europe had better defensive records than them. Iran were very strong as a defensive unit and the whole Argentine team found it very hard to score against the parked bus of Iran. However, it was Messi who eventually pulled off the trigger and scored one of the best goals of the tournament. Its not that Messi was non-existent in the knock out phases. Against, Switzerland he created the only goal of the match. Against Belgium Higuain got a lot of space due which led to the goal as too many opposition players were covering Messi. Against Netherlands he was man marked. Netherlands had to play defensive because of Messi threat. Against Germany on a number of occasion he made arguably the best defender of this world cup, Hummels looked average. I think people expected so much more from Messi that whatever he did in the world cup appears to be average by that standard. Zidane was the golden ball winner in 2006 with 3 goals (2 of them were from penalties) and 1 assist. He was also sent off in the world cup final. Forlan won the golden ball in 2010 with 5 goals and 1 assist and his team Uruguay finished fourth! World Cup 2014 best player,winner of Golden Ball Lionel Messi stat at this tournament: 7 matches, 573 minutes, 4 goals, 1 assist,most chances (23) created in this world cup,and most dribbles (46) completed in this world cup as well. Argentina only scored 8 goals in this world cup. He was directly involved in 5 goals with 4 goals and 1 assists, besides the own goal in the very first game against Bosnia and Herzegovina came from Messis free-kick, the goal Higuain scored against Belgium from a Di Marias reflected pass was actually a Messi pass to Di Maria; that sums it up to 7 out of 8 Argentina goals in this tournament. The only goal scored by Argentinians in this world cup was scored by Rojo against Nigeria in the 2nd half from a corner taken by Lavezzi. I know haters, hes a good boy and that you sarcastically want to put it as a reason for winning the Golden Ball. Yeah, hes a very good boy that he stood up as teams captain to take the first penalty in penalty shoot out in semi-final against Netherlands instead of waiting to take the glory hunting last one like some certain player did in Euro2012 against Spain. He also did not have any hair cut during this world cup. So, Id say hes a perfect boy, not only a good boy! :p Now haters, can you please tell me when was the last time the golden ball winner was from the world cup winning team or from a team that were knocked out from quarter-final? You may be amazed to learn that only in 3 occasions of it’s entire history the Golden Ball winner were chosen from world cup winning team! Nobody, I repeat nobody ever won the Golden Ball after being knocked out from quarter-final! If you go back 20 years ago, in 1994, Romario was the last man to win the Golden Ball from the world cup winning team. But when its Messi, then unfortunately some certain people turn up as always, very expected why though! :)
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 20:20:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015