My team, Holland, had just completed an improbable victory, and I was floating in a swimming pool in Brasília. Tropical birds chirped in the trees above, and friends chirped in the water around me. It was then that I had a eureka moment: of the seven straight World Cups I’ve been to since 1990, this is the best. And that’s an unbiased Olympian judgment. As Nigeria’s coach Stephen Keshi said straight after being knocked out: “So far it’s been wonderful.” The task now is to work out exactly why, so that we can bottle the Brazilian feeling and reuse it in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.
我支持的荷蘭隊剛剛贏得了一場不可思議的勝利，而我正躺在巴西利亞的一座游泳池裏。樹上，熱帶的鳥兒嘰嘰喳喳；水裏，朋友們在我周圍嘰嘰喳喳。就在那時我得出一個結論：自從1990年以來，我連續赴現場報導了七屆世界盃，而這屆是最棒的。我的判斷公正公平。正如奈及利亞主教練斯蒂芬•凱希(Stephen Keshi)在球隊被淘汰後所說：「迄今爲止，這屆盃賽很棒。」現在要弄清楚的是這屆世界盃爲什麼很棒，這樣我們便能總結巴西經驗，在2018年的俄羅斯和2022年的卡達加以推廣。