Theoclymenus: As I said before I'm a bit fickle when it comes to supporting teams other than my own ! I had no strong bias in the final - which I thought was a high quality match, by the way, which Germany just about deserved to win - but Argentina had three City players so that swayed me towards them.
My criticism of the Bundesliga is based purely on the fact that Bayern Munich are too far ahead of the other teams and that certain players - Gotze, Lewandowski - would rather play for Munich than Dortmund, thus widening the gap between Munich and the rest, disrupting the growth of an excellent Dortmund team and in the process turning the Bundesliga into a boring procession. I wish players would be a bit more "quixotic" when choosing which team to sign for : everyone just seems to flock to Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayerm Munich and I think it is boring !
Was out of town, in Scotland as a matter of fact - sorry for belated response.
But that 1990 finale; that most blasphemous finale... But you are most admirable to haven gotten over it, lol, but I am somehow stuck with some default underlying dislike against AR following that night. :-D
I am not at all at odds with your view on Bayer München, actually, I wholeheartedly agree. Their total dominance is at the expense of the sport as a whole to my mind. You may recall my view though that ManU had period of almost the same level of domination, though not quite, possibly owing to two domestic cups in England.
In any liga, the whole competition turns bland if for some months every team plays around and in the end team X is anyways crowned the champion, to spin Lineker. What has to be said for Bundesliga though that the youth system seems to be extremely good in finding and developing talent.
What I totally abhor with money-rich teams is their cynical poaching of talent from home and abroad, on verge of breakout, and owing to extreme competition many of these players waste away at benches, losing their edge, until it is time to sell them off. Take Salah of FC Basel for example. But at least, no competition gets to use them, right??
I find that FIFA and UEFA policy to shower the best achieving team with most money - I find 30 M EUR or so award for WC title totally ridiculous but hopefully German FA has to pay tax on it - counter productive in keeping competition interesting.
I think that FIFA / UEFA should be made to hand subsidies rather in reverse order of goodness, but... directed at youth system etc.
real.geizterfahr: I've read in the news today that Christoph Kramer (one of the German players) got a shoulder rammed into his face (accidentally) in the 17th minute of the game. When he came back on the field after a short break, he went to the referee and asked him if this is the world cup final oO The referee first thought this was a joke, but Kramer asked him again. The referee then got him replaced with another player in the 31st minute. Now, Kramer told the media, that he can't remember anything from the half hour he was on the field... Wow..that is wow, maybe the biggest game of his career and can't remember.
