A festival...

The FIFA world cup 2010 concluded after 40 days of fun and excitement. As many close to me know, I was supporting Spain from day one and feel vindicated at the end of it all. :-)

This was probably the first world cup where I saw a huge cross section of friends, family and colleagues keenly following the world cup and tracking their favourite teams. This made it all the more interesting during and post match discussions and it was such a lot of fun. I enjoyed it thoroughly!!

I am a lover of Jogo Bonito and have been following the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga for the last couple of years. Since this is where all the money is, most of the best players in the world play here and more often than not, the club football is more fun than when countries play each other. But the standouts during the last couple of years, in my view, have been Barcelona and as an extension Spain. They play a brand of football that I love to watch, endorse and play!

This is not to say that 4 years from now, I will continue supporting Spain. A lot of things can change in 4 years and I suspect the real stalwarts of the "Beautiful Game", like Brazil and Argentina will learn from their early exits from this world cup and go back to their style and flair rather than mimic the European nations. And then there are the bruised giants like France and Italy and the quintessential under achievers, England, who have a point or two to prove. And who can discount the Germans, who livened the world cup like no other team has!

As the excitement of one subsides, the wait for the next one starts...