Thrills and spills ensure this World Cup living up to hype

World Cup good, bad and ugly

Lapping up against the very edge of this World Cup were brutal worries. In the hours before the opening group game between Brazil and Croatia, tentative jibes were made about a temporary stand at the Itaquerão being met head on by the sound and fury of the hosts while never having been tested. In the days before the most significant group game between Spain and the Netherlands, welders and workers carried sheet metal around the Fonte Nova stadium in Salvador. But after months and years of concern, it’s been a tournament so good that it’s amazingly left us to mostly focus on what’s happened on the field — positive, negative and occasionally stone mad.

THE GOOD…