Published: 17 July, 2014
by RICHARD OSLEY

No wonder Lionel Messi looked a teeny-weeny bit embarrassed as he trundled up the steps to collect the best player trophy on Sunday. He did score three exquisite goals in Brazil, but when Argentina needed to score, where was he and the rest of his team? No team should win the World Cup with two penalty shoot-outs, and having beaten Holland by that method in the semi-finals, it would have been plain wrong if they had won the final in the same way. They finished the tournament with five and half hours of football without a goal. The wait for Messi to net again was even longer. That is boring to watch. Better choices for the main prize would have been James Rodriguez, just about anybody from Germany and Arjen Robben, whose brilliance just about outweighs the diving and snarling.

A tough ask, but close your eyes and imagine England have just won the World Cup. What would you think if in this moment of absolute glory, David Cameron was there, his fizzy face in every shot, hugging every player as they went up for the trophy and them hugging him back like pals from way back? For good measure, imagine this being followed by some cheesy-as-hell selfies with the players on the pitch and the changing rooms. Regardless of your politics you should be imagining such a scene with chundering horror: the awkward badminton player now one of the lads. Most people I’ve tried this on have come out of their trance within 1.5 seconds, unable to bear it. Now, to be fair to Cameron, he hasn’t done this and we’ll never know whether he would because England were awful. But it is a wonder as to how on Earth German chancellor Angela Merkel pulled off this unbeatable PR with such natural skill? The huggy warmth between her and the players was quite mesmerising, a delight even. Not one of them flinched when she sprawled in for a kiss.

The repeated joke since the World Cup is how have Chelsea got away with selling David Luiz for £50million.

As pathetic as Luiz’s performances were as Brazil disintegrated, talking about the monetary values of footballers in pub conversations is now a complete irrelevance. For the fans there is no real economic guide to chart these transfers by any more and yet you hear them deep in conversations about “I'd like to buy so and so, but not at that price” or “it would have been good if he had stayed but you have to sell for that kind of money”. These armchair accountants are lost. Chelsea, Man City and PSG have skewed the market so much with spending that prices are irrelevant to any normal person. It is now impossible to gauge anyone’s real worth in terms of money. Besides how many fans of any club will say at the end of the season, we didn’t win the league but don’t worry, at least we didn’t fool ourselves by spending over the odds on any new players. It’s a ruined transfer market, rich in money but bankrupt in realism. Not too long from now £50million might be the norm for anyone who can tie their laces properly.