First published by Ace Magazine online July 2014.

“On the cusp of glory, frustration and exasperation will find a way to block success…”*

Emotions in Brazil must be heading all over the place as it stands, for the footballing public, the religion of the sport is enough to make anybody even remotely concerned about the final on Sunday wonder just who they are going to cheer on. The industrious Germans who tore their side apart with the consummate ease of a Lion being offered an all you can eat menu whilst picking their main course for dinner on the Serengeti or Argentina, their biggest rivals in World Football, a country that is less than a couple of hours away by airplane, a country that produced more attractive football than Brazil in the last decade…Nobody could surely blame a single person in Brazil if they thought on Sunday afternoon, “I cannot face this, I am going to bed till Monday, roll on 2018.”