FIFA World Cup 2014 starts in less than a week, you may use this thread to share your overall thoughts such as your favorite team/s, players, expectations, anything related to this grand event, really.


First of all I'll start by saying Brazil proved to be a rather poor location to hold this years World Cup which is kinda ironic when you think about it. When entire nation literally obsessed with football strongly opposes an event such as World Cup you know how ****ed up their situation is right now. As someone whose country went through small revolution recently I can somewhat understand what they're going through and what they have to deal with. Overall a poor attempt of "Bread and circuses", sadly no bread for many, literally.

Friendly matches were all but friendly these days it seems, this year in general was unfortunate for so many great players some of which sadly won't see the World Cup, the likes of Reus, Falcao, Ribery, Montolivo, Strootman, Walcott... not to mention those who'll miss a game or two, Suarez for instance.

As a Croatian who lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina naturally I'll support these two teams. I have high hopes even though both groups with Brazil and Argentina in lead are nothing short of challenging. Croatia lost four important players last month or so, most noticeably Kranjčar, luckily there's no shortage of truly talented young players eager to prove themselves. This is a debut for B&H, hopefully they do well, they have a solid first team, however a pretty weak bench.

Honestly I'm not really impressed by Brazil, I'm not sure where all this arrogance and optimism comes from, all but impressive line up with "I fall at even the slightest contact" Neymar as their lead player. My money's on Germany this year, love their style and their attitude on the pitch never ceases to amaze me. Ever so close on so many occasions I feel they will go all the way through this year even though no European team has ever won the World Cup outside of Europe. First time for everything I suppose.

**** England! Seriously, I take them as serious contenders every time and every time they **** up or plain embarrass themselves. Netherlands seems to have way too many young inexperienced players this time around, that being said I don't see them doing as bad as they did at Euro Cup 2012. You never know with Italy, they are always at their best when no one's counting on them. Argentina is a bag of mixed feeling for me, as well Portugal, Uruguay might be a pleasant surprise.

Brief summary and expectations of mine, I'll add more later as the World Cup nears.