Opinion: #WorldCup2014 – A curtain call for the old generation of football stars

by Chinedu George Nnawetanma

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Andrea Pirlo and Gianluigi Buffon have been on either side of that cruelty in the past and weathered the storm together. Whether they will continue to play on for years to come or not is anybody’s guess. 

Owing to early exits from the competition, many of them will not get the befitting send-offs from international football that they deserve, on the grandest stage. Among other things, this World Cup has turned out to be an eye-opener for some of the world’s top footballing nations to ring the changes.

Spain, coming into the tournament as the defending champions and strong favourites, were quickly bundled out before they could get their acts together. They became the first defending champions in the history of the World Cup to lose their first two games.

An over-reliance on the remnants of their golden generation has been fingered as the major cause of their much-discussed misfortune. Players that were well past their peak like captain Iker Casillas, his deputy Xavi and Xabi Alonso were preferred to fresh hands and legs like David De Gea, Cesc Fabregas and Koke in their Group B opener with The Netherlands, for which they paid dearly.

There were dramatic and shocking scenes at Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez Airport on Tuesday when the world and European champions arrived from Brazil on the back of their group stage elimination and bode emotional goodbyes to each other. They had all left two weeks ago with the World Cup trophy among their luggage and they returned empty-handed.

For some of them, it will be their last engagement with the national team. David Villa, Spain’s greatest ever striker, may have already played his last international match in the 3-0 victory over Australia on Monday. Midfielder Xavi is no longer the player he used to be and he has already been told by Barcelona he’s free to look for another club. He too may have played his last competitive match for la Furia Roja. The same goes for Xabi Alonso (who was rumoured to have announced his retirement after Spain was eliminated by Chile, though he would later deny it), Iker Casillas and Pepe Reina.

Whilst other top teams leaving the competition have not performed so disastrously, most would wish they could have achieved a lot more. Like Spain, Italy lost two of their group games and won the other. Like the Spaniards once again, they set for themselves an unenviable record in the process: bowing out in the group stages of two successive World Cups, 8 years after winning the 2006 edition.

Tuesday’s defeat to Uruguay was an agonizing way to leave the tournament. The Azzurris looked destined to overrun the South Americans until Mexican referee Marco Rodriguez took the rash decision of giving dynamic midfielder Claudio Marchisio his marching orders. Things went from bad to worse thereafter. He failed to punish Uruguay’s Luis Suarez for his biting antics on Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. Minutes later, stand-in captain Diego Godin would go on to score the only goal of the match. It is as cruel as football can get. Andrea Pirlo and Gianluigi Buffon have been on either side of that cruelty in the past and weathered the storm together. Whether they will continue to play on for years to come or not is anybody’s guess. All in all, they have paid their dues for the national team and made a mark in their own era of football.

The Three Lions endured yet another disappointing World Cup campaign. Having started well despite a loss at the hands of Italy, they let their guards down and lost in the decider against Uruguay, finally capping off a wretched campaign with a banal draw against Costa Rica. In a largely experimental and inexperienced team, old-timers like Steven Gerrard were expected to provide inspiration and guidance to the younger ones, but it was another in a laundry list of infamous slip-ups by the skipper that ensured they will be booking a flight back to London’s Heathrow Airport barely two weeks into the tournament.

Gerrard might have delayed taking the decision on his international career until after his summer holidays to “clear up his head,” but it would be foolish of him to continue to play on and captain the side. Combining his England duties with UEFA Champions League commitments next season will put unnecessary strain on his tired legs and the most sensible thing for him to do at this moment of his career is to call it a day on international football.

Gerrard’s colleague in the England midfield for the past fourteen years, Frank Lampard, had reportedly made his intentions to quit the national team after the World Cup known before the tournament began, but coach Roy Hodgson has urged him not to step aside. The 36-year-old captained the Three Lions in the goalless draw with Costa Rica, a match which may eventually be his 106th and final cap in the red and white jersey. In an international career spanning 15 years, he became only the 7th Englishman to make 100 appearances for the senior team, overtook Alan Shearer as their most prolific penalty taker and scored 29 goals from the midfield. An early exit at the hands of Italy and Uruguay is definitely not the parting gift he dreamt of on his way to Brazil. If he decides to retire from England duties, he is doing so as one of the best midfielders England and English football has ever produced.

The African duo of Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o – perhaps the two greatest players in the history of African football – are far from the marauding forwards they used to be. The two ex-Chelsea strikers, clearly in the twilight of their careers, did the best they could to save their teams from possible humiliation in the face of very strong oppositions. They were beaten but not humiliated. This may be the last time we will see these two icons in their national team colours in a competition of this magnitude.

One retiring veteran who will undoubtedly be leaving with his head held high is Germany’s Miroslav Klose. The quiet achiever equalled Ronaldo’s record of 15 World Cup goals, set in 2006, in Saturday’s encounter with Ghana. While the Lazio forward is not regarded by many as one of the game’s greats, he has done just enough to write his name in the soccer history book: one that will still be read for many generations to come.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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