World Cup 2014

With Germany's thrilling 1-0 win over Argentina just earlier today, the 2014 World Cup has officially come to its end. While all of the soccer is over, for many fans, players, coaches and staff alike the memories will not soon fade.

This year's World Cup treated all who tuned in to some really exciting soccer. We saw group round matches that were so close and exciting, many would have thought they were watching the final rounds. We saw some teams like eventual champion Germany and runner up Argentina skate through each round with relative ease, while other highly touted world powers, Portugal and the 2010 champions, Spain got sent home after the first round.

Here in America we saw our home team sneak past the extremely intimidating "group of death" and narrowly miss the chance to advance past the round of 16. We also saw the greatness of goal tender Tim Howard in that eventual loss to Belgium when he saved a World Cup record 16 shots attempts. As many analysts have pointed out since, Team USA's performance has really brought more passion for soccer to America.

The later rounds of the tournament provided many thrills, but none bigger than the tournament's host team, Brazil, getting decisively beaten by the world champion Germans, 7-1, in this past week's semifinal match. While Brazil was not in the title match, it's nation was still abuzz with soccer pride as Germany and Argentina dueled in one of the best World Cup finales in history.

So as the soccer has come to a halt, it's important to note that all of us were witnesses to so much excitement, over the past month.