Nothing that happens in Brazil occurs in isolation

For fans over a certain age following a World Cup, you’re never really watching just that World Cup.

As much fun as one such as this may be in its own right, you constantly end up comparing something from it to something from another tournament. It may be how a particular national team measures up to its predecessors or how an obscure nation’s success reminds you of another’s from decades ago. The present is not so much haunted as shadowed or even more so enhanced by the past.

This column in particular has been walking in a fog of nostalgia as much as it has been enjoying the rays of light of such a bright and vibrant tournament.