2014 World Cup - 1st Round Review!

If number of goals was a key measure to determining how good the 1st round of a World Cup Finals, the 2014 World Cup definitely is the best ever - 136 goals were scored from the night Brazil and Croatia kicked off the tournament.

Moreover, it must be noted that the so-called big stars, the big name strikers, i.e. Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Suarez, van Persie, Robben, Mueller, Klose, Dzeko, Villa, Torres and even Rooney have all got their names on the scoreboard at this tournament. Only Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic and Bale are missing but that's because their countries didn't make the World Cup.

But there is more to football than just goals - from a subjective point of view, all the games were full of attacking football with only Iran v Nigeria and Japan v Greece really not following the script.

Then, there were the results and shocks - there were some astounding ones indeed, and I guess in hindsight, the Netherlands' 5-1 incredible thrashing of Spain probably set the tone for the rest of the tournament.

It hasn't been a good tourno for England - or their fellow European giants

While the first round of the 2014 World Cup Finals was memorable for the neutrals, it hasn't quite been one for the European sides - they still provided the most entrants in the 2nd round but are missing former world champions, Spain, Italy and England, as well as Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal and Croatia.

Indeed, it has definitely been America's tournament with Central/North America providing 3 out of 4 participants in the 2nd round and South America providing 5 out of 6 participants - only Honduras and Ecuador missed out on the party.

Africa have also had their best World Cup performance yet - they finally produced more than 1 entrant in the 2nd round with Nigeria breaking their long absence since 1998, and Algeria finally breaking their 32 year hoodoo - revenge for the disgrace of Gijon back in 1982 is now on their mind as they take on Germany in the 2nd round. In fact, it should have been 3 had the referee not erroneously awarded that last minute penalty to Greece against Cote d'Ivoire which denied the Elephants a draw to make the 2nd round.

As to who is looking like favourites - it is difficult to say. None of the traditional favourites, the former multiple world champions, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Germany have looked that convincing - the other world champions, Italy and England are out of contention. Out of the former world champions, France have looked the best in this tournament but it has to be said that the form teams in this tournament are the Netherlands and Colombia.

One could argue that the yellow team from South America that is looking good is not the host country and with Colombia set to face Uruguay and then the hosts, Brazil, there's a chance that it could be the Colombians who are favourites.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my team and goals of the best first round of a World Cup in 20 years!

Best XI -
GK - Keylor Navas, Costa Rica
DF - Daley Blind, Netherlands
DF - Per Mertesacker, Germany
DF - Vincent Kompany, Belgium
DF - Pablo Zabaleta, Argentina
MF - Oscar, Brazil
MF - Paul Pogba, France
MF - Arjen Robben, Netherlands

FW - Thomas Mueller, Germany

FW - Lionel Messi, Argentina
FW - Robin van Persie, Netherlands

Best 3 Goals - 
Jermaine Jones, USA v Portugal

Lionel Messi, Argentina v Iran

Robin van Persie, Netherlands v Spain

Most Memorable Game - 

Spain 1-5 Netherlands - it wasn't the closest game (Germany's 2-2 draw with Ghana should take that cake) but it was the most astounding turnaround by any side. The Spanish, the reigning world champions, were 1-0 up and comfortably dominating the game with their tikka-takka style. Up stepped Robin van Persie to score the best headed goal you'll ever see any time, and it's 1-1 at halftime. Second half, the Dutch are a transformed side, pressurizing a Spanish defence and goalkeeper that was suddenly culpable, scoring 4 unanswered goals.