THE END

Today, Spain crashed out of the World Cup. They did not go out with a bang, but rather with a whimper. I know I will fail to capture how their departure makes me feel, but I will try anyway.

I first came to truly love the game of football four years ago after watching the Spanish national team play in the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Spain's style was truly a revelation and unlike anything I had seen before.

Spain did not boot the ball down the field and hope for the best like so many other teams I had watched before. Rather, they treated the ball like a valued possession and used quick, short, accurate passes to magically work the ball up the field. Every player was interchangeable, and every moment was so precise. It was impossible to defend against them because they played as a unit. It was also impossible not to marvel at their style of play because of its fluidity and effectiveness.

If I fell in love with football through Spain at the World Cup, that courtship continued with FC Barcelona. Indeed, more than one half of Spain's players in 2010 came from Barca. After the World Cup, I began to follow Barca and could easily appreciate the club's influence on the national team. Both teams loved to play with the ball. Both teams loved to involve every player. Both teams enjoyed making something beautiful on the pitch.

However, in recent years, both Spain and Barca have declined from their peaks. Their key players are older and more tired, and they have given everything to club and country in the past six years. Indeed, the national team won the 2010 World Cup bookended by back to back European Championships in 2008 and 2012.

It is not the fall from the podiums that pangs me however. Rather, watching Spain play in this World Cup felt like a funeral because of their complete lack of effectiveness or execution. Yes, they lost to talented teams from the Netherlands and Chile, but Spain's imprecision was every bit as important for their elimination from Brazil. To see these players incapable of executing felt like sitting at the death bed of one's first love. It was painful, sorrowful, and shocking.

Rather than mourn the passing of this great generation of players, we should appreciate what all they have achieved and what they have given the world. In my opinion, no one ever played this game as well as they did. No one ever played it more beautifully. No one ever swept me off me feet the way Spain did. For each of us, there is only one first love. For me that will always be the not so young men of this great Spanish side who also starred for Barcelona- Andres Iniesta (shown above crying as he left the pitch today), Xavi Hernandez, Carles Puyol, David Villa, and Gerard Pique.

We do not owe them any sympathy tonight. What we owe them is gratitude and appreciation. I will not soon forget this first love...