This World Cup has been amazing, but .....

With the final taking place later today I feel confident in saying that this has been the best World Cup of my lifetime. Even England's tepid submission has not been able to squib my enjoyment. Incredible goals – controversial, but I prefer Van Persie's diving header to James Rodriguez's incredible about-turn volley; second to last minute equalisers followed by last minute winners; and so much drama. It just hasn't stopped. I think of the games that I haven't enjoyed and I can only number two or three. But then football has the ability to do that.

At its best - don't let any naysayer tell you otherwise - it is the beautiful game. My favourite moments - other than, egotistically, my own brief flashes of Hackney Marsh glory - have always been those that take the breath away, leaving you gasping at what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins described as 'the achieve of; the mastery of the thing'. Dennis Bergkamp's late winner for the Netherlands against Argentina in 1998 is my absolute pick. Plucking - if that is something that you can do with the top of your right foot - an arrowing sphere from the sky, bringing it instantly to heel, and then calmly dispatching it with the kind of understated flourish that only an artist can achieve, is the most glorious thing I've ever seen on a football field.

The greatest first touch ever?

Almost enough to make you forget the dark and sombre shadow that extends itself over the world of football. I'm not talking about the cartoon controversies - Arjen Robben's music hall tumbles, Maradona's 'divine' hand, and - yes! - Suarez's Tourettian teeth. They are just distractions, and whether we like it or not - and unless it's our side we love it - are all part of the show. It's the other stuff; the stuff that takes Bill Shankly's assertion about football being more important than life and death, and reveals it for the amusing and throwaway piece of hyperbole that it is.  

A few weeks ago I found myself wandering into the first room of the Saatchi Gallery to check out the latest exhibition Pangaea. Clustering all over the walls, particularly in one corner, were what appeared to be giant insects. As I moved closer I became aware of the 'materials' that made up these insects. Two casts of human skulls, bound by tattered and dirty linen strips, with twigs attached for legs. Around one hundred of these occupied the spotless white walls of the gallery. The piece was by Rafael Gómezbarros, a Colombian artist, and the thinking behind it is that these ants signify the largely unnoticed plight of migrant workers in Latin America. It is only when we are close up to these insects that we manage to see the human element, the skulls unmistakable and arresting. Simple, effective and, explosive. Everything that I think conceptual art should be. Rather than arrowing in on the situations in Latin America, my own mind drifted south to Brazil and the construction workers who had died there; and then east, thousands of miles east, across the oceans to the tiny, 'ultra-modern' state of Qatar.

Rafael Gómezbarros' worker ants - Casa Tomada

Here, hundreds of migrant workers, employed to erect the stadia and superstructure for the next World Cup but one, have died already. An investigation by the Guardian revealed that "workers, having paid fees to often unscrupulous middlemen, were facing horrendous conditions upon arrival in the emirate to work. Wages were often lower than billed, living quarters were often inhuman, working conditions were demanding at best, and outrageous, dangerous – and even fatal – at worst." Just awful. Modern slavery - why is that phrase not yet oxymoronic - is still present in the most 'modern' of cities.

Closer and unique

This World Cup really has triggered a great deal of cognitive dissonance. Or is it simply a human trait, a necessary one, to separate these things? Watching Hayao Miyazaki beautiful swan-song, The Wind Rises - my favourite film of the year so far and in its way the equal of his extraordinary Spirited Away - certainly caused me to dwell on this. It is the 1930s and Jiro, a young and idealistic aeronautical engineer, is working on the perfect fighter plane. Clearly able to separate the object he is designing from its ultimate purpose, the outbreak of war nevertheless sends him unquiet dreams. 

The Wind Rises - Beauty is the beast

In one of his slumbers Jiro is asked "Do you prefer a world with pyramids, or with no pyramids?" His answer, despite the thousands who perished in the construction of those mausoleums, is an ambiguous 'yes'. Our thoughts should always be troubled by questions like this. We should want a world with 'pyramids', but without the suffering. Surely this is now possible? Surely we can have incredible World Cups without people dying in their droves in the implementation of them? FIFA, unfortunately, seem unconcerned with that. By extension, and through our enjoyment of this World Cup, maybe we are too? I'm hoping for an amazing game tonight - and a German win - but whatever the outcome it will - and should - fail to drown out the horrors that are happening behind the scenes.