With the World Cup now reaching its climax, Fr Hilary Tagliaferro believes that this edition so far has been one of the best, apart from Mexico 1970 which he ranks as the ultimate one.

The retired sports journalist, now 83 years, who covered eight world cup editions between 1970 and 1998 where he was present as a member of the international press, was asked about his views on Russia 2018 by Times of Malta.

While he concurs that no team so far has stood out, he says that Brazil might be slightly better than the rest. As for the best goal, he ranks Uruguay’s first goal against Portugal in the last 16 match, scored by Edinson Cavani as the best.

However, Fr Hilary sounds a word of caution on VAR. While commending the use of VAR to help the referees, he says that this still needs fine-tuning.

Moreover, he warns over-reliance on technology could render football more like a Playstation video game.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.