Pain will last forever, claims haunted Mascherano

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Pain will last forever, claims haunted Mascherano

Argentina midfielder Javier Mascherano said the pain of losing the World Cup final in extra time 1-0 to Germany on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro would live with him forever.

"Unfortunately the pain will be there for life because this was our chance," said the Barcelona midfielder.

Argentina played extra time in three of their four knockout games and also had a day less to rest ahead of the final than the Germans after squeezing past the Netherlands on penalties in the semi-final on Wednesday.

And the 30-year-old admitted they ran out of steam in the second-half of extra time when Mario Goetze struck the winner seven minutes from time.

"It is difficult to explain. It escaped from us at the last minute, we did everything to try and win. We had the best chances until we ran out of gas.

"The pain is immense because we wanted to take the World Cup back to Argentina but we gave everything. We are empty, we gave what we had and we are sorry for ourselves, for the people that came here and for the people that are in Argentina.

"Football is like this and we have to raise our heads and deal with the pain."

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2014-07-14

[boomerangutang]

Live by the ball, die by the ball.

It's a mental fixation, dude. In soccer, it's always a win-lose scenario (except when there's a tie). Even when there's a tie, there's a bigger goal, such as a championship cup - so in the bigger perspective, it's win or lose.

I'd like to sit down with Mascherano and others like him, and put aside the yearnings for glory and gold for a few moments, and speak a bit about about a win-win scenario. It's called; spiritual enlightenment.

Or, if that's too nebulous a concept, talk about health and contentment - both physical and mental.