A 2-2 tie with FC Dallas Sunday left Vancouver just out of the playoff tier and frustrated again at missed opportunities.

The most entertaining part of the summer of soccer, I admit, has been Louis van Gaal's complaining.

One of the most-capped players in the history of England's national team, midfielder Frank Lampard says he's signed on with New York City FC to help build a team and a tradition.

Super Frank in Times Square. Join him at Yankee Stadium in 2015. Get your season tickets now: http://t.co/JDCed623Ip pic.twitter.com/fIpWrd9lX6— New York City FC (@NYCFC) July 25, 2014

The best World Cup ever? Not if you are concerned about player safety.

Two sets of fans on the subway leaving the Maracana station on Sunday night wore German replica jerseys. One group sang loudly and danced around while the other watched before finally joining in.

In a tournament with so many twists and turns, it isn't easy to come up with a World Cup Best XI. Over the tournament's 32 days, there were many outstanding individual performances but not a lot of consistency. Even champion Germany mixed great with not-so-great performances in its seven matches. The choices for World Cup Best XI, as selected by the editors of Soccer America, place an emphasis on the influence these players had on the success of their teams over the entirety of the tournament.

A gripping World Cup final ended with a superb goal by Mario Goetze that earned Germany its fourth world title. He was just one of many players on both squads who responded admirably to the big occasion.

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Mario Goetze, who was born nearly two years after Germany last won the World Cup, struck a left-footed volley into the Argentine net to give Germany its fourth world championship.

Brazil 2014 has been the best World Cup of our lifetime. Beginning with the first three days that produced four comeback wins, the World Cup was, to borrow a line from ESPN's Jon Champion, the gift that kept on giving. From the dramatic -- half the knockout games weren't decided until stoppage time or overtime -- to the outrageous -- Luis Suarez bites again -- and the unfathomable -- Brazil loses 7-1 (or Spain loses 5-1) -- we'll be talking about the 2014 World Cup for years to come. Here are 10 best things about the …

Life is good. On Saturday I had the offer of a free sandwich and a roundtable discussion with Pele.

Few Brazilian fans could have foreseen how hosting the World Cup would end, with a depressing 3-0 loss in the third-place game.

I find Brazilian Portuguese to be a beautiful language. The woman's voice coming over the P.A. at Sao Paulo's Rodoviaria Tiete bus terminal, reading departures and arrivals, sounds like a lovely song, which is what I first thought it was.

There were common elements to the 1986 and 1990 World Cup finals. Both were contested by Argentina and West Germany, which fielded many of the same players, including Diego Maradona and Lothar Matthaeus, respectively, in both competitions, but they left very different impressions.

It has been 24 years since Germany won its last World Cup and 18 years since it lifted a major trophy, the 1996 European Championship.

You think Brazilians will pull for their South American neighbors in the World Cup final against Germany? Fuhgeddaboudit.