Wow, the 2006 World Cup was in my opinion the best (since I started watching in 1990).

The 2002 World Cup for me was marred by horrible refereeing and terrible football (with the exception of Brazilian Ronaldo). That Germany team was probably the weakest team to ever reach a World Cup final. It's the same team that lost 0:3 to Portugal's B team in the Euros and didn't get out of the group. The only reason they managed to get to the final was because they were playing absolutely ridiculous teams on their way there and had a heroic goalie in Oliver Khan. The two semi-finals were Brazil v Turkey and Germany v South Korea. The final was boring and one-sided. Just terrible. I even prefer the 2010 cup to the one in 2002.

Yeah, Germany were pretty terrible that year. I seem to recall only Khan and Ballack carried them to the final.

They are a great team now. They cannot afford to finish in second place. They have to win. This is their biggest chance in a long time. They should have won Euros 2012 too thinking back but messed up big time.

I don't think Germany has ever beaten Italy in a tournament. Italy is the only opponent Germany fears. It's bizarre because Italy can lose to the tiniest most insignificant teams any day of the year, but they always beat Germany. There is no getting around that. Plus, Pirlo was unbelievable in 2012 and carried Italy to the final alone.

yesterdays semi final puts 2014 in touching distance of 1998 goals tally i think?

7 goals needed? 3 games to play

4 goals needed to match it, 5 goals needed to break it. It wasn't going to do it, but that match will ensure it does now.

Yes it's currently at 167. France '98 was 171 so only five more needed. It didn't look as if it would be exceeded but yesterday's goal feast made up for the low scoring q/f's. It may not exceed it but with the 3rd place game usually producing a few goals then I think it will, or at least equal it.

It will be interesting to see how Brazil approach that. Are they just going to go all out attack again against whoever Holland or Argentina, risking surely another heavy defeat? Or will they be more cautious this time?

They're playing some quality opponents now not Cameroon or opponents who are bit intimidated by them (Chile/Colombia).

Well Thiago Silva should return to instill some defensive discipline so that's something. I guess it also depends who they are up against. They won't want to lose to Argentina if they are the opponents. I know it's a nothing match in the grand scheme of things but they can't possibly be worse than they were yesterday and they will want to sign off with a decent performance. Will be a strange atmosphere nonetheless.

If they meet Argentina, it will be full on.

Well he helped reduce them from conceding 7 this time to only 3. Or did he? Should have been sent off and Holland could have gotten more if they had wanted to I feel.

I knew Germany weren't the only team that could have potentially pulled that off in this WC.

Lots of after-eventing in that post.

From the Eloratings thread, post number #8, my post said 4 days ago:

Someone saying Silva should improve them is completely right, even if it doesn't come to pass. Quoting them to show how wrong the prediction they didn't make is needless.

I was just quoting him to continue the conversation and the thread (for the sake of it more than anything), not to show he/she was wrong following the aftermath, obviously the poster was correct in saying what he/she said.

Cheerfully withdrawn in that case.

Just to add that Brazil were awful last night but not as awful as they were against Germany. Fourth place flatters them.

Only one goal needed in the final to equal the record for the World Cup with most goals scored.

So unless it goes to penalties with a 0-0 draw this World Cup may well achieve the record of the World Cup with the most goals scored.

I guess we have to thank Germany a lot for that with their 7-1 demolishing of Brazil and Holland for adding another 3 last night.

Best WC of the century for me.

Best World Cup I've ever seen, Russia and Qatar are such terrible venues that I can't see anything coming close until at least 2026.

One of the greatest World Cups ever if we're talking entertainment value : the first two weeks were absolutely fantastic

Not good enough. Alan Hansen said not only was it the greatest WC, but it was by an absolute mile. Needs more jazz in that statement.

I'm only kidding, I'm in agreement with you. We've had arguabley one of the best if not the best group stages ever, but there's been one too many drab knockout matches for me for it to declared the greatest ever outright. The final was 'OK' but I can only think of 4 or 5 out of the 16 knockout games that were truly special/memorable (I include the 7-1 Brazil/Germany game in that, which wasn't really a great match in itself).

It didn't even break the 1998 total goals record either, suprisingly, even with the 7-1 game.

What goes in it's favour is that there were quite a few upsets in the group stages and minnows like Costa Rica, Algeria and Greece got out of their groups.

Agreed. It was always going to get tense during the knockout stages, but even then, Brazil vs Chile was a classic (in my book anyway). Germany vs Algeria was the best 0-0 I've seen in years and of course, there's Brazil vs Germany.

So called minor nations have really stepped up as well. I wasn't expecting much from Columbia, or Costa Rica, or Algeria. The USA have continued their improvement. Even Iran gave Argentina a good game. Games which looked less than exciting on paper (like Honduras vs Ecuador) were quite entertaining and for a while, we were feasting on around 3 goals per game.

It was leagues ahead of South Africa 2010 for sure, it was nice to actually hear the crowd reacting to events on the pitch (instead of the constant drone of those flipping horns) and we certainly had more goals, along with a much better final in which the 2 teams attempted to play football instead of kicking the crap out of each other.

So, yeah, Brazil 2014 was very, very good. I suspect its all downhill from here, especially with the match times and time zone differences for 2018 and 2022. This time around, I was able to see pretty much every game or most of every game. No chance of that happening for Russia or Qatar I suspect.