Completely agree. There are many players who should have won that ahead of Messi. What a farcical decision.

Malcolm
Wakefield & Gothenburg, SWE

I'll tip my hat to the Brazilians for organising a great tournament. Great atmosphere unlike South Africa with those stupid vivivulvas or whatever the feck they were called.

Depressingly, the next two tournaments are likely to be utterly soulless affairs, typified by the nations in which they are being held.

And so my prediction of a 1-0 Germany victory came to pass, perhaps not in the circumstances I expected as I expected better defense and less opportunities from both side.

However no shot on target from the Argies, first time in a final since Argentina in 1990.

You have to respect the way Germany deal with tournaments. First world cup since 1990 but they always give a good show of themselves and are at the business end of a competition.

Why can't England replicate what Germany do / have been doing for so many years. Is what they dod in the background and in the bundeslega so different to the prem?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/10962088/World-Cup-2014-Why-selfish-England-must-learn-from-selfless-Germany.html

I'll tip my hat to the Brazilians for organising a great tournament. Great atmosphere unlike South Africa with those stupid vivivulvas or whatever the feck they were called.

Depressingly, the next two tournaments are likely to be utterly soulless affairs, typified by the nations in which they are being held.

Originally Posted by: Matty H 

Wales and Australia

Originally Posted by: SEMerc 

ha ha

Excellent stuff.

https://twitter.com/falklands_utd/status/488436939616702464

Rodriguez or Neuer for me.

Messy Messi  no goal scored.  Enjoyed the match.. No shoot out to go through. Well done for the German team. 

The Gaucho Grill dream dies... Bugger 

Well done to the Germans; they were the best team in the tournament and deserved to win it last night. That said, it could have been a different story if the Argies had taken some of the chances that came their way, especially early on. At least they made a game of it last night, unlike their biggest rivals last Tuesday!

I think that sooner or later, FIFA will have to backtrack on Qatar hosting the 2022 tournament. There is no way on earth it can be played in that country in the summertime (far too hot), and moving it to the winter would cause far too much disruption to the domestic season, both in this country and around Europe, not to metion the likes of the Champions League as well.

Personally, I think England should get the 2022 World Cup.

A question for those who know more about football than I do.

Is Lional Messi one of those players who is great at club level, but not good enough when it comes to the international stage ??

For what its worth I think he does fall into that category. 

Has to be Neuer or Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is going to become a world class player over the next couple of years if he isn't there already.

Well he's put in some brilliant performances right at the very top club level, so I don't think it's a case of him not being good enough.

I think he's been struggling for months to consistently reach anything like his best form. Is there an underlying injury? Sometimes something relatively trivial can rob a player of that little extra bit of ability that made them special - look at Torres.

And maybe the particular style deployed at Barca is so ingrained in him, he finds it difficult to adapt to a different system, such as that played by Argentina (which, of course, you would expect the very best players to be able to adjust to)

To add, one thing is for certain, it's a joke for him to be named player of the world cup.

Agreed. As mentioned, probably to keep the coporate lobby happy

Higuan will forever regret missing that easy chance early in the game. I think he just rushed it.

Glad the Argies didnt win, they would have been the most undeserving  Champions ever

Which point I did make.

What did everyone make of the tournament overall? Did you think it was the best, or one of the best ever as claimed by some sections of the media? For me it was the best one since the World Cup was expanded to 32 teams & 64 games for France '98, but I'd only put it as high as equal with 1994 in terms of quality. Mexico '86 is still the best World Cup I've watched.

I agree. They would also have been underserving champions IMO had they won the Italia '90 final against the Germans, even more so than had they won last night.

I thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup - great matches especially in the group stage, loads of great goals and plenty of attacking football. I agree in that it's been the best World Cup since USA 94. Hopefully Russia 2018 will be good too. A while to wait yet but I remember thinking that after the World Cup in South Africa, here we are 4 years later and Brazil 2014 is finished!

For those of us that missed '66, do you think you will see England ....

a) Host a world cup

b) Win a world cup

c) Win a Euro championship

...during your lifetime?

Scary to think that I've now seen 8 World Cups. It doesn't seem that long in some ways since I watched the highlights on World Cup Grandstand (remember it?) as a 6 year old of the opening match in 1986 between Italy and Bulgaria. Seems incredible to think that is now 28 years ago.