The individual brilliance of the early matches was eventually neutralized by countries with better all-around squads and this was a World Cup that became reasonably predictable once we escaped the group stage. But every single minute was thrilling and worth it.
Ivory Coast Front Office
The team at Cambridge scoured over 15,000 football-specific online sources to produce the following chart.
Lionel Messi headlines the WhoScored Best XI leading up to the World Cup Final with a rating of 8.77.
ESPN completed its #WorldCupRank with Lionel Messi ranking first ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, but Spain and Germany had the most players featured.