How good was it for you?

[GIMH]

The final's quality may be a determining factor but overwhelming sentiment on CW has been to rave about this WC

where do you rank it?

for me personally, England sucked and the timezones have led it me missing a stack. I'm not great at being a neutral so unlike some of my compatriots, England's early exit was always going to put a downer on it for me

Still, the group stage was ace and there were some bloody brilliant knockout matches. I preferred 98 overall though.

 

[sledger]

Would rate it about 8/10 on the whole. It's been a lot of fun.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Despite England it is the best World Cup I can remember. Been very enjoyable.

Is it as good as 70? No idea, better than 86 and 90 though and all since have been poor/average.

 

[Teja.]

Have only watched '06, '10 and '14 completely and this was comfortably the best.

I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than I would have because one of my favourite sportsmen ever (Robben) has been outstanding in it.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It needs a good final and a German win to put the cherry on top.

I had a bit of an England-being-out-and-shyte monk on for five days or so, but have enjoyed it tremendously overall. It's had good guys (Rodriguez, Howard, Muller, Sanchez, Neuer), bad guys (Honduras & the host nation, sadly) and guys who've turned it on on the pitch but have, as we say, let themselves down with their other stuff (Suarez with his Dracula impersonation and Robben's continuing Tom Daly fixation).

 

[OverratedSanity]

Of the few I've seen live, it's the best by a distance. Group stage was just incredible, and though there have been a couple of stinkers in the knockout rounds, there were also some crazy results (Brazil - Germany obviously) and even some of the low scoring games had insane finishes (Mexico - Netherlands, Belgium - USA, Netherlands - Costa Rica). Little to complain about. 9/10.

Hope the final's good

 

[Furball]

Comfortably the best since USA 94.

 

[Johnners]

I think it's been great, however the timezone has been a killer and I've missed more matches than I would have liked because of it.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Been watching since '94 and it's the best I've seen, ahead of '98. Knockout stages have been average to poor though, haven't really been many memorable individual or team performances in those games aside from the 7-1. But that often happens, so it's not a huge deal.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

I really struggled to get my enthusiasm up for the knockouts after the second round, got a bit saturated I think. Found the group stage very good, but that was also the case with '06.

Will miss international football though.

 

[GIMH]

I think it's the knockouts that make me prefer 98 though

england-Arg, Holland-Arg, Brazil-Denmark, both semis all highly enjoyable games from a neutral pov, off the top of my head

 

[grecian]

It was the best since 1990 IMHO, I really enjoyed the final, and Brazils humiliation in the semis and even making the 3/4 place game relevant will hopefully kill a bit of their pragmatism.

TBH I probably only loved 90 necause of England's performance, so for quality fun and brilliance it may even beat that.

It's been immense, ****ing brilliantly huge.

 

[Pothas]

Best World Cup I have ever seen for sure.

It did drop off as the tournament went on though, without the 7-1 the latter stages would have been a let down.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It needs a good final and a German win to put the cherry on top.

Think we're there, chaps.

 

[morgieb]

Unfortunately time zones were a bitch to me and the latter stages were pretty meh.

NFI how this stacks up to other World Cup's.

 

[The Sean]

Yeah, the knockout stages didn't quite match up to the Group stage but that is at least partly due to the fact that the Group stage was so unbelievably good. And the 7-1 made up for a lot of the relative disappointment anyway. I've been watching since '86 and watching closely since '90 and as an overall footballing spectacle this is definitely at the top for me.

As a personal favourite, everything will always struggle to beat '06 due to the facts that a) Australia made it for the first time in my lifetime and b) I was there.

 

[grecian]

I understand what people are saying about the latter stages, but they're rather forgetting about the group stages being a massive percentage of the games played, and most times these games where boring, and playing for draws. If you go back a bit too (which unfortunately I do) a lort of the games were one-sided rubbish with teams who shouldn't have been allowed to qualify.

In the end knock-out games always have their thing because we'll see a result, so good group stages are more important for my watching fun.

 

[sledger]

I always enjoy the group stages more to be honest. Probably simply because in the first few weeks there are 3 games on a day, and if you're lucky you're able to watch all of them. It's like the beginning of the summer holidays, or Christmas day or something. The fun is underway, but the best is yet to come etc... I think more often than not the best games in these tournaments come in the group stages as well. Kind of a reverse from the Champions League actually.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah that is a good comparison, group stage of the Champions League is such a drag but the latter stages are nearly always excellent.

 

[grecian]

Yeah that is a good comparison, group stage of the Champions League is such a drag but the latter stages are nearly always excellent.

Nah it's a lousy comparison because the group stages are normally awful, take the last one, it was attritional stuff. I practically gave up on the Tournament.