Germany Are World Champions

First we had the third and fourth play-off where after a disastrous Semi-final against Germany, The host nation BRAZIL took on HOLLAND.

Brazil from group A started off their campaign very well from the first round by winning two of the games and drawing one. They finished top of their group and went in to the next round against Chile and drew 1-1 after extra time. They went in to the quarter-finals after winning 3-2 on penalties. In the quarter-finals they met Colombia and won 2-1 in a thrilling match. Then it went all wrong as they then lost 7-1 to Germany in the Semi-finals.

Holland had a much better start by winning 5-1 in their opening game against Spain and then went on to beat Australia and then Chile. Top of their group B, Holland then faced Mexico in the second round and won 2-1 after going down a goal in the second half. In the quarter-finals they drew 0-0 after extra time against Costa Rica and picked up their first blank score sheet. They won 4-3 on penalties to face Argentina in the semi-finals. This game also ended 0-0 after extra time and they then lost 4-2 on penalties.

There was still great hope in Brazil that they could finish third but that soon got taken away from them when a penalty scored by van Persie in the 3^rd minute gave Holland the lead. Both teams seemed to pass the ball around a lot but no goals until the 16^th minute when Holland go two up with a goal by Blind. As we have seen over the past four weeks none of the games have been very memorable and this one did not live up to its name either. Although Brazil tried to come back in the last few minutes, Holland scored their third and final goal in the very last minute of normal time by Wijnaldum. Result 3-0 to Holland and a total of 15 goals for the tournament. Brazil have been very disappointing over their last couple of games but they did finish with a total of 11 goals. 

The final was played between GERMANY and ARGENTINA. Germany with 24 votes had won the trophy three times with the last being in our very first World Cup of 1990. Germany from group G won two of the three games while drawing the third. In the second round games, Germany beat Algeria 2-1 in extra time and then faced France in the quarter-final. A hard game for the Germans but they won that one 1-0. In the Semi-finals they played Brazil the host nation and won 7-1 in a very easy game for them to win. With 30 votes, Argentina from group F had an easy first round by winning all of their three games. In the second round they played Switzerland and won just 1-0 after extra time. In the quarter-finals they beat Belgium 1-0. Argentina had won the World Cup two times and their last was back in the 1986.

The game seemed to be evenly matched but again a lot of passing the ball with no real results. In the first half, Argentina had a goal off side and throughout the game never really had a shot on target. Germany hit the post just before half time. Nothing happened much in the second half and extra time had to be played to split these two teams. But Gotze in the 113^th minute in the second half of extra time scored the only goal in this poor final. Germany are crowned World Champions and now for the fourth time. Argentina finished on 8 goals while Germany picked up the joint highest score of 18 goals the same as Brazil in Korea/Japan in 2002. 

The best nations that we had in the World Cup Brazil 2014 are

GERMANY (18) HOLLAND (15) COLOMBIA (12) BRAZIL (11) total of 56 goals

We had three nations that picked up just two goals each and went out after the first round. They were England, Italy and Russia.

GERMANY holds the record for the highest score at Brazil 2014 with the 7-1 thrashing of BRAZIL in the Semi-finals.

The fastest goal was scored by USA’s Clint Dempsey after just 29 seconds of play against Ghana in their opening game in the first round.

So how did your teams do in the Golden Goals World Cup 2014? Below are all of our nineteen nations with the number of votes in RED followed by the nations and number of goals in each of the six stages of the World Cup.

FIRST ROUND

(18) SPAIN 4, (8) PORTUGAL 4, (4) IVORY COAST 4, (3) ENGLAND 2, (2) RUSSIA 2,

(2) ECUADOR 3, (1) ITALY 2

SECOND ROUND

(12) URUGUAY 4, (3) MEXICO 5, (2) CHILE 6, (2) NIGERIA 3, (1) USA 5

QUARTER-FINALS

(14) BELGIUM 6, (11) FRANCE 10, (5) COLOMBIA 12

SEMI-FINALS

None of our teams went out at this stage.

3^rd and 4^th PLAY-OFF

(45) BRAZIL 11

(13) HOLLAND 15

RUNNERS-UP

(30) ARGENTINA 8

CHAMPIONS

(24) GERMANY 18

Our goals total finishes at a grand total of 124 goals for the tournament which is our second highest score after the 1998 total of 138 goals.