The players have returned home for brief offseasons, or in the odd case of MLS, back to the regular season.
Coaches have been fired or feted.
The World Cup is two days in the rear view mirror but a host of emotions continues to swirl in the afterglow as everyone s attention turns toward Russia and the next cycle of World Cup qualifying.
It starts now.
Every soccer nation is undergoing a retrospection on how to improve or reach elite levels. Yes, that includes champion Germany. Every country s program will be dissected, inspected and, in the case of Brazil, summarily rejected.
Let s examine two countries with dramatically different arcs and personalities.
AMERICAN AWAKENING
Great soccer teams don t suddenly appear every four years. The building blocks are constructed over time.
Jurgen Klinsmann didn t have many months to build a roster for Brazil as well as start laying the foundation for the future. But now he has a new cycle to fill in the missing pieces before Russia 2018.
Based on what he has done so far, it bodes well for the United States. Many fans and experts disagree. It s part of what makes conversing about soccer fun.
Here are some of the important events for the second phase of the Klinsmann era:
–The 2015 under-20 World Cup will be held May 30-June 20 in New Zealand. Some Americans from the team will be coming into their primes in 2018. How they do internationally matters to America s growth where the benchmark in Russia will be reaching at least the quarterfinals.
–The CONCACAF Gold Cup next July will help determine who qualifies for the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia. The Confederations Cup is held the year before the world championships as a test event for the host country. It s also a major international tournament that gives players more experience before the World Cup.
–The 2016 Copa America will be played in the United States, allowing American players to have a chance to test themselves against one of the world s best soccer regions.
–The 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is yet another big developmental event, assuming a group of under-23 Americans qualifies.
Klinsmann coached Germany to third place at the 2006 World Cup, and his handpicked successor Jogi Low got the country over the final hurdle Sunday.
But it started with Klinsmann s core group: Miroslav Klose, Philipp Lahm, Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Klinsmann certainly doesn t get all the credit for Germany s title. But he was part of the solution as the country developed better youth academies and the Bundesliga perhaps overlook the EPL as the world s top league.
Germany relied on 16 Bundesliga players to lead it to the first World Cup title since 1990. In all, 76 league players participated in the World Cup.
The Germans — and not the Brazilians — married a free-flowing game with structure better than anyone in the world.
This is not to suggest Klinsmann can duplicate those efforts in the United States in four years time. But he has the chance to create a true national soccer identity.
Klinsmann has arrived on the scene as soccer has bloomed in America. Beyond the record-breaking TV figures, players are developing at a higher rate.
The controversy over cutting Landon Donovan from the 2014 team probably was good for a young soccer country. It showed maturity and passion.
The United States has all kinds of young talent playing abroad. Midfielders Marc Pelosi of Sunnyvale and Lynden Gooch of Soquel represent youth teams in Liverpool and Sunderland, respectively. Los Altos Hills Joshua Pynadath, 12, was signed by Real Madrid.
The U.S. team four years from now could look vastly different than the one that reached the knockout stage in Brazil. And it could lead to more debate over selections.
Whatever happens, it won t be boring.
THE BRAZILIAN EXPERIMENT
The Portuguese language has a word for it: saudade. (It is pronounced sal-dodge-JAY in Brazil).
Brazilians have a day for it: Jan. 30 is the day of Saudade.
The word doesn t have a parallel even in Spanish, but it can best be described as a stronger sense of nostalgia.
It is that emptiness in recalling better times or a burning love. Or in the case of the pall cast over Brazil at this moment, memories of the worst representation of Brazilian soccer in a lifetime.
The host country got thoroughly embarrassed in falling 7-1 to Germany in the semifinals, and then 3-0 to Holland in the third-place game.
Brazil never looked better than average in advancing through the rounds. It seemed to win because of its reputation as history s greatest soccer country.
But in the end, the mystique suffered a polar icecap meltdown.
Federation officials fired coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, but it doesn t seem likely that will resolve the immediate problem of player development.
Fans can debate Scolari s roster selections, but he had a simple choice: rely on inexperienced players or stars past their primes.
Scolari went young and it showed. Only Neymar Jr. and Oscar looked like they came off the Brazilian soccer conveyor belt with the ability play futebol arte, better known as the Beautiful Game.
Signs of the fissure could be seen before the World Cup. Mexico defeated Neymar and Brazil for the 2012 Olympic gold medal. A year later, Brazil failed to qualify for the under-20 World Cup for only the second time.
In the past year, only one Brazilian team advanced past the first round of Copa Libertadores, a prestigious South American club tournament.
By comparison, Argentina won the 2004 and 08 Olympic gold medals.
The Beijing Games champions had the bulk of the team that finished second Sunday to Germany. It included Lionel Messi, Angel di Maria, Javier Mascherano, Sergio Romero, Sergio Aguero and Ezequiel Lavezzi.
Beyond Messi, di Maria and perhaps Aguero, Argentina did not create international stars. But the country developed a program filled with talent deeper than many predicted before the World Cup began. Currently, it looks much more solid than its rival and neighbor.
It will be interesting to follow Brazil s progress in the coming years to see if it regains its national soccer identity of creative, fun soccer. Critics suggest the federation has emphasized structure at the expense of expression. The theory goes officials handcuffed future Peles and Ronaldos.
Those critics want Brazilians to rediscover their soccer roots by placing emphasis on dribbling, showmanship and panache as learned on the dirty backroads in towns across the massive country.
But as the sport has globalized, it is difficult to protect the past. Brazilians are exported across the international soccer marketplace and are subjected to more structured soccer by their club employers.
Unless the domestic Serie A and Serie B leagues can retain homegrown talent, it will be difficult to regain its stature in four years.
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