After four years of qualification rounds and steady build up of anticipation, the eagerly awaited 2014 FIFA World Cup is finally arriving. Hundreds of thousands of soccer fans from around the world are flocking to the adopted home of the sport, Brazil, in order to catch a glimpse of their favorite players score goals and reach the glory of lifting the famed cup.
The month long tournament begins today (June 12, 2014) with the opening match that will see the heavily fancied favorites, Brazil face off with a young, but very strong Crotia team. Brazil will be led in attack by the 22-year-old Neymar who recently joined Lionel Messi in FC Barcelona, and while both had relatively indifferent season campaigns, Neymar is expected to bring Brazil the cup as well as the Golden Boot, the trophy awarded to the player who scores most goals in the tournament. Messi is also expected to bring Argentina the cup as he is declared by most soccer fans to be the greatest player to ever live, and the only trophy left for Messi to claim is, the World Cup.
But while Argentina and Brazil both have a great opportunity to win it all, so do many other teams and like the great soccer saying goes, “in futbol everything is possible.” That is the motto that every team is going into the World Cup knowing, that everyone who qualified to reach the final 32 teams has a chance to lift the trophy. That, unlike club soccer where money dictates who plays where and ultimately who wins what, the World Cup teams are represented by its people and that eliminates the corruption that is present in so many other competitive tournaments. That is what makes the World Cup so different, what makes it so appealing, and that is what causes the passion it inspires, the heartbreak it brings, and the pride it exposes.
For a month every four years the world collectively sets its eyes to watch the World Cup, and together it feels the joy of life, the same joy it feels when we all scream “Goal!”