As the World Cup final line-up is confirmed with Germany once again facing Argentina on the ultimate stage and after five weeks of breathtaking action, Sportsmail's ROB DRAPER looks back over what we have seen at Brazil 2014.

1) Brazil have long since ceased to be the custodians¹ of the beautiful game

We didn’t need the humiliation² of the semi final to demonstrate that, though that result will forever be cited as the point at which Brazil lost its moral authority. The sterility³ of the opening games and the quarter-final against Colombia, when they set out to kick a team off the pitch, did as much damage. The last Brazil team that dazzled was in 2002, with Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. Ironically it too was managed by Luiz Felipe Scolari. But, given a poorer generation of players, his cynicism simply looked brutish. Jogo Bonito has become an awful cliche⁴ which only has credibility in the minds of Nike executives who seemed to think that slick marketing⁶" target="_blank">marketing⁵ and multi-million pound deals are all you need to sustain the 'brand.'

2) International football remains⁷ the peak of the game

This is sacrilege to the Premier⁸ League but the fact that it only assumes its supremacy⁹ every two years doesn't make it any less true. Note: it is not that the football is better than club football; it clearly isn't. But witness the receptions Colombia, Algeria and Costa Rica have received. Consider the fact that if Argentina win the World Cup, it will surpass anything Leo Messi has done for Barcelona. Only national teams have the power to evoke¹⁰ that kind of universal response from people. Clubs should not feel threatened by that. They're the lifeblood of the game once the carnival¹¹ crowds depart. But the ultimate power and the glory still rests with those who achieve great things for their country.

3) Passion alone does not win you football matches

The debate between the supremacy of passion or cerebral¹² tactics as a means to win football matches will rumble¹⁴ on. Essentially¹⁵ whichever side you’re on is a projection¹⁶ of your personality. Without passion, you don't get Luis Suarez's performance against England. Without tactical know-how¹⁷, you don't get Costa Rica’s march through the tournament or Holland coming within a couple of penalty kicks to the final. There is a balance to be struck and most obviously Brazil got it painfully wrong when they opted¹⁸ to embrace the fervour of a nation and ended up overdosing on emotion, consumed by the Neymar frenzy¹⁹. Passion overload²⁰ brings witless football and Brazil's performance was a useful reminder²¹.

4) Attacking football is here to stay

So Argentina and Holland did their best to buck²² the trend in last night’s semi-final. But the move towards positive football, initiated²³ by Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund in Europe, has been given added impetus²⁴ here by the most exciting South American teams in Chile and Colombia. Counter attack can still work - Carlo Ancelotti delivered a masterclass against Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final - but we live in an era where an awful lot of coaches choose to seize the initiative. And that just wasn’t the case ten years ago.

5) England players are still over-rated

England may not be quite as bad as their results here suggest. But even in this period of self-flagellation about how awful English football is, as a nation we still default into assuming that players that have done well for big clubs in the Premier League will be up to World Cup standard. One former leading European coach noted²⁵ of the England team here: 'When it comes down to it, the first touch of most of their players is still short of the other top teams.’ That, and a lack of tactical nous and intelligence, ultimately holds back English players and until they are bothered enough about it to think about how they might improve, not much will change.

6) FIFA is finished

We didn't really need the World Cup to tell us that. But the convergence of publicity²⁶ at the FIFA Congress last month simply confirmed that it represents a broken model of governance. It looks like a 20th century institution still expecting that family patronage²⁷ and old-school rules will get them by. The winds of change will blow away FIFA’s current corporate²⁸ structure. Either it will fall to Sepp Blatter to introduce a whirlwind of reforms - stranger things have happened - after his inevitable²⁹ re-election next year (which in itself demonstrates how rotten the organisation³⁰ is); or sponsors will eventually unseat the tired old man of FIFA under pressure from US lawmakers.

7) Brazil shouldn’t have hosted the World Cup

Oh, it’s been fun, the best tournament in memory, largely because of the hospitality of the people, volunteers and staff and the rich football tradition here. In some ways you want Brazil to host every World Cup. It’s just you wouldn’t want the Brazilian government and the organising committee to be left in charge. The disparity between poverty on the streets and the billions lavished³¹ on stadia, such as the Brasilia National Stadium – currently under an audit³³" target="_blank">audit³² committee investigation³⁴ for suspicious over-pricing issues - and the Amazon Arena³⁵ in Manaus, which have been built with state subsidies³⁶ and which now serve no useful purpose is plain wrong. No country without a joined-up plan as to what the World Cup will do for its people should be permitted to host it. Still, Russia and Qatar up next, so don’t hold your breath.

8) Louis van Gaal is a little bit crazy

OK, so Ron Vlaar up for the first penalty is a risk too far. But otherwise the new Manchester United manager had a good tournament. It’s not just the Tim Krul substitution for the penalties against Costa Rica, which was a little shallow in all honesty. It's the switching to a back three just before the tournament when many consider the tactic¹³ outmoded and Johan Cruyff was telling all and sundry³⁷ he was a dinosaur³⁸; and switching to a back four when it was all going wrong against Australia; and using 3-4-3 against Costa Rica. There are several ways to win a football match. Van Gaal seems determined³⁹ to use all of them and, if he can, all in one match.

9) The world is still a big place

Technology and globalisation make it seem small as we're all better informed, Champions League football means there are less surprises than ever. It’s easy to think we know it all not just in England but in Europe. But some of the most interesting tacticians out here were Jorge Luis Pinto, Costa Rica’s Colombian coach, Jose Perkeman, Colombia’s Argentinian coach and Jorge Sampaoli, Chile’s Argentina coach. Even within Europe, there are players outside the Champions League. There is a world outside of the Premier League and the Champions League, though with the aggressive marketing of those two competitions, it’s easy to forget.

10) The Germans got it right

Yes, it’s getting boring. We all know: the blueprint⁴⁰ after the failure in Euro 2000, the investment in youth football, the partnership⁴¹ with the Bundesliga clubs. England were abject⁴² in Euro 2000 and the FA decided⁴³ to resolve the problem by spending £5million a year on whoever was the most attractive manager was on the market, while the Premier League nonchalantly kept counting its cash. It’s become a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true: the Germans actually attended to the grass roots of their game and, funnily enough, they produce excellent footballers and a national team of which to be proud

世界杯还剩两场比赛即将落幕，终极对决将在德国和阿根廷之间展开，英国《每日邮报》报体育专栏作者罗卜·德雷珀（ROB DRAPER）撰文回顾总结了本届杯赛值得反思的十件事，全文如下：

1.巴西人已经不再是艺术足球的代言人

不需要用半决赛的惨败去证明这个事实，7比1的结果说明了巴西已经失去了它在足球界的绝对地位。揭幕战表现令人失望， 四分之一决赛对阵哥伦比亚，巴西费了九牛二虎之力才拿下比赛。距离上次巴西夺冠还是2002年世界杯，当时队里还有里瓦尔多，罗纳尔多，罗纳尔迪尼奥等大牌球星。具有讽刺意味的是，当时也是由现在的主教练斯科拉里执教的。但是，这一代球员远不如上一代。巴西的漂亮足球似乎已经成为了一种陈词滥调，只有耐克高管还信任他们，仍然与他们签订了百万英镑的赞助合同。

2.国际足球比赛仍然是各类体育赛事的老大

也许这是对英超联赛的亵渎，但事实上就是如此。并不是说国际足球赛事会比英超俱乐部的比赛好看，但看了哥伦比亚、阿尔及利亚和哥斯达黎加所受到的待遇，你会考虑这样一个事实：如果阿根廷赢得世界杯冠军，那么将超越梅西在巴萨所获得的一切荣誉。只有国家队的比赛才能让普通人也异常疯狂，但俱乐部不会为此受到威胁，因为一旦世界杯结束，狂欢的球迷离去，足球的主旋律就由他们演奏了。但是只有为国家出战的比赛中所获得的荣耀，才是球员真正的荣耀。

3.仅有激情并不能让你赢得比赛

对于战术还是激情能赢得比赛的争论还会继续下去。你支持任何一方都只是你个性的反映。

没有激情，你看不到苏亚雷斯对战英格兰的神奇表现；没有战术安排，你看不到哥斯达黎加一路过关斩将；没有范加尔最后时刻的换门将，你也看不到荷兰通过门将神奇地赢下点球大战。必须打破这个平衡，激情和战术都是需要的，巴西人就没有把握好这一点，欣然接受整个国家对足球的热情，过分沉溺于个人情感，一点点地消耗的内马尔的激情与狂热。过多的激情没能带来精彩的足球，巴西的表现给全世界都提了个醒。

4.攻势足球在此停留

攻势足球似乎是停滞不前了，防守反击拉开了主旋律，所以阿根廷和荷兰在半决赛中，把主要的精力都放在了防守上。但足球要积极向上的发展，还是得看攻势足球（比如巴塞罗那和多特蒙德的比赛）。本届世界杯最激动人心的还是南美球队智利和哥伦比亚。防守反击仍然奏效，安切洛蒂带领的皇家马德里在欧冠半决赛中对阵拜仁慕尼黑，大师级的防守反击给我们留下了深刻的印象，但我们还是生活在这样一个时代，很多教练需要去抓住场上主动权，但在十年前，不是这样的。

5.人们对英格兰球员仍然期望过高

英格兰的球员并不是和他们的比赛结果那样糟糕。但即使是在一个全民吐槽英格兰足球的时代，我们仍然默认英格兰球员非常的出色，因为他们大都为英超俱乐部踢球，都是国际水准的。一位前英格兰队的欧洲教练指出:“当归结英格兰的失利，大部分球员还是第一次参加世界杯，比赛经验不如其他顶级球队。”加上战术体系的缺失，最终使得持有很多英超球员也无济于事。他们有足够的时间去思考如何改进，但没有太大改变。

6.国际足联完蛋了

我们不需要世界杯来告诉我们这些，但是国际足联代表大会已经验证了FIFA破碎的管理模式。国际足联看起来就像20世纪的机构，仍然期望赞助和制定的规则也是过时的。国际足联的内部的不合理结构早晚会改变的。国际足联主席布拉特将会带领足联开始改革，在他连任之后，一些改革已经出现了（这本身就说明了该组织是腐败的）。或许赞助商在美国国会议员的压力下，将最终推翻这个国际足联疲惫的老人。

7.巴西本不应该举办世界杯

有趣的是，记忆中最好的世界杯，很大程度上就是因为当地人，志愿者和工作人员的热情好客，和当地丰富的足球传统。在一些方面，你想要巴西举办每一届世界杯，而且你不希望巴西政府和国际足协插手干预。在巴西街头你就能看到巨大的贫富差距，无法想象，政府还在挥霍金钱，建个球场还要花费数十亿，比如巴西利亚国家体育场。目前，审计委员会已介入调查，该工程存在定价过高的问题。玛瑙斯的亚马逊竞技体育场由国家补贴建造，现在没有任何用途，简直就是在浪费。一个国家连个施工整体的计划都没有，怎么能胜任举办国的任务，世界杯举办国应该给当地人带来些什么。接下来，俄罗斯和卡塔尔将举办世界杯，所以不要屏住呼吸，纠结这个问题了。

8.范加尔有点疯狂

让弗拉尔踢第一粒点球的确很疯狂，简直就是在冒险。但是总的来说，这位曼联的新主帅，世界杯之旅可圈可点，还是带来了精彩的表现。不仅仅是最后时候的神奇换人，换上蒂姆·克鲁尔去扑哥斯达黎加的点球。还有在赛前使用过时的三后卫战术，在对阵澳大利亚的比赛中用四后卫，对阵哥斯达黎加改用3-4-3阵型。以多种战术赢球，范加尔似乎就是下定决心将这些战术策略通通地用一遍，或者，如果有机会，他可以在一场比赛中用完所有的战术。

9.世界仍然是个大舞台

科技的进步和全球化的进程使世界变得越来越小，我们能更好地获取比赛信息，冠军联赛比起以往，都少了很多的惊喜。我们看到的不仅是英格兰人的表演，还有欧洲人的表演，还有一些其他洲的球员的精彩表演，比如说哥斯达黎加的主教练平托（哥伦比亚），哥伦比亚队的主教练佩克尔曼（阿根廷），智利队的主教练圣保利（阿根廷）。在欧洲还有一些球员无法踢冠军杯，在英超联赛和冠军联赛外，还有另一个世界，还有更多的精彩。虽然这两个比赛宣传力度很大，但是还是很容易就会被人忘记。

10.德国人是正确的

我们都知道德国队在2000年欧洲杯上失利后，与德甲俱乐部合作，大力投资青年足球。英格兰在2000年欧洲杯上也表现的很糟糕，而英格兰足协却决定通过每年支出500万英镑花在教练身上，来解决这个问题，英超联赛还若无其事地计算着在足球上花费的钱。事实证明：德国将足球转变成为了平民游戏，产生优秀的足球运动员和值得骄傲的足球教练。