The Day Has Finally Arrived

The time has finally arrived! The World Cup is finally here and I cannot contain my excitement. I've decided to start a blog to make job hunting that much more enjoyable. And of course to share my feelings and insights into this year's World Cup. As we wait for Croatia vs. Brazil to begin I thought it would be important to talk about my conflicted feelings in regards to this year's game. Having written a paper on Brazil's preparations for the World Cup, it is evident that the protests occurring in Brazil are not unwarranted. Even today police had to stop rioters in Sao Paulo, where today's first game is taking place, who are upset about the government's use of $12 billion of public money to fund the most expensive of all World Cups thus far. John Oliver did a great piece on his conflicted feelings in regards to FIFA that I thought I would share. I agree with many of his feelings and cannot complain about seeing a hilarious clip of Sepp Blatter falling down.

As we anticipate the 1pm kickoff time, I will only briefly touch upon my predictions for the World Cup, since everyone has been speaking about them ad nauseum. I have to say that ESPN's cast of announcers all pale in comparison to beIN Sports' Ray Hudson. He is the most entertaining commentator I have ever heard and is so refreshing in comparison to the dull Alexi Lalas. Saying that my dream winner would be Spain. If La Furia Roja were to win it would make them the first team ever to win four major competitions in a row (2 European Championships and 2 World Cups) and the second team to win two World Cups back to back after Brazil in '58 and '62. However, the amount of great teams at this World Cup will make this a challenge and Spain's possession style football is not the behemoth it once was. Fingers crossed that Spain does not get stuck trying to find the perfect pass that they miss great goal scoring opportunities which has been the case in many of their past games. Though I think the addition of Diego Costa will create a new Spanish team different from the one we are used to seeing. 

Besides Spain, there are some other great teams that have a chance to vie for the trophy. The host country Brazil are one such team but they have a huge amount of pressure. Today's match against Croatia should be a good barometer of how well they can play especially since Croatia is a pretty good team which ESPN seems to be forgetting. As always the German's are a huge threat, but their preparation camp was kind of a mess. One of their young stars got injured, two players were involved in a car accident, they have an aging striker (Miroslav Klose is 35 which is ancient in striker terms,) and there star goalie is fresh off a shoulder injury. Then there's Argentina, who contrary to what people think actually have an amazing team outside of Messi. Di Maria is an incredible player and Sergio Kun Aguero is a world class striker in his own right. I should stop now because I can continue talking like this for every team in this year's World Cup. I will end saying that I believe that Belgium have a great shot to go really far in the tournament. I'll talk later on about my feelings in regards to my native country's chances in the World Cup but I will end with a shout out to Yasmine and say that the USA will kick her Ghana's butts!!