FIFA World Cup 2014 (Great Goalkeeping)

 The world cup has been very successful with billions of people tuning in  to see their favourite teams in action. It was expected that the soccer crazy nation of Brazil would give a tremendous response to the World Cup and so it turned out to be . Not a single match was boring , there was not a single match in this world cup when there was low crowd support . Soccer fans from all over the world converged to beautiful Brazil to support their favourite teams. Especially fans from neighbouring South American countries went o Brazil in large numbers. 

Ochowa saves during Brazil vs Mexico match

                     To me the thing that has impressed me the most about this world cup is the quality of goalkeeping. Goalkeeper's job is said to be a thankless job , people don't remember goalkeepers but after this world cup this may change . We saw some magical saves by Ochawa, Vincient Eniema, Navas,Tim Howard, Noir,Tim Krool,Romero. While Ochawa denied Brazil from getting 2 more points in a group stage match ,Tim Howard simply created magic by making save after save after save after save in all 16 of them in the match against Belgium. Had it not been for Howard I am sure the match would have been over in regulation time with a scoreline of 4 - 0 or more . Tim Krool was substituted in the 120th minute in the quarter-final match against Costa Rica and he made two excellent saves to see Netherlands through to the semifinals, Netherlands are normally very bad with penalty shoot-outs. However in the semifinals against Argentina Rudd Van Hall had some different idea and substituted all 3 players before 120 minute thus Tim Krool remained on the bench . It was Argentine goalkeeper Romero's turn to make the saves and he did save two of the penalty shots to makes sure that Argentina go thorough to the finals. I think it would have been a much more competitive penalty shoot-out if Tim Krool was there.  Goalkeeping is very vital position, most of the matches won by teams are won with a goal difference of 1 or two goals in such a situation saving a few goals can be the difference between a win and loss. I sincerely hope that after this world cup people also keep a record of goalkeeper's saves along with goals scored by strikers. 

Tim Howard in action

Navas saves a penelty shot

          The innovations that we got to see in this world cup is use of Vanishing spray to mark out the position of ball and the wall (Wonder why wasn't it used before). Secondly the use of goal line technology that determines whether the ball has crossed the goal line. Also the use of spider cam(it was already in use in cricket matches).But along with that we have also seen that there have been fouls committed that have simply not caught the eye of the referee. In hockey with a pitch of 70 yards they have two referees why can't the same be done in case of soccer. 

        The Brazuca ball has been very good and has lead to the scoring of many goals, probably we would have seen many more goals but the standards of goalkeeping have been simply stupendous. 

      So everyone enjoy the games and lets hope that the quarter-finals , semifinals and finals bring out some of the best football that the world has ever seen.