Breaking Stereotypes

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A week where we saw an octopus garner more media waves than Cristiano Ronaldo, Barack Obama and Rafael Nadal combined has ended the way it was scripted to be, with Spain winning. But then why is everyone surprised? After all this world cup has been about breaking the accepted stereotypes.

The Brazilians played like Italians do while the Italians were out before they realized that they were supposed to play Football in South Africa and not babysit their grandchildren. The Germans were very Spanish, while the Spanish were very German. There's nothing "Total" about the way the Dutch play football anymore. The French did what the Dutch do; self implode, while the Uruguaians played like the French, complete with handball and all the works. The Chileans did a passable imitation of the Brazilians, but without the talent they were going to go down, and they did. The only three unbroken stereotypes in this world cup were:

The English, who once again walked into a tournament with their nation believing they've already won only to walk out after lots of fretting, and realization that inspite of all the hype generated, their players are mediocre when confronted with their other European and South American counterparts.
The Argentinos who were as classless and imbalanced as they always are, relying on red cards or individual brilliance and at time fists to pave the way for them to the final. Pity, none of that helped this time and the last I heard was Maradona putting out an ad in the Classifieds inviting sellers of cocaine, so that he can spend his hard earned money as a (ex) coach of Argentina.
The Portuguese who came to the tournament as the perennial dark horses, only to be swallowed by darkness....like always.

This world cup also broke other stereotypes in that the big names in world football viz. Ronaldo, Messi, Rooney, Torres all managed just 1 goal in between themselves, while a 20 year old boy who pissed off the great Maradona so much by sitting next to him at a press conference that Maradona stormed out, has scored 4 goals with 3 assists in 5 outings in his first ever world cup. The vuvuzelas replaced team chants and a beachball replaced the football...

So why are we still surprised?