No Outstanding team at World Cup

Not quite sure if the standard of international football has dropped or if the smaller teams have raised their game. Probably a bit of both

Don't think the gap has closed, it was just a World Cup with conditions that favoured the America's and North Africa.
The Asians were generally well below the standards of the top nations contrary to recent past, and the West African nations were pretty woeful.

As for standout players, I though James Rodriguez was quality throughout, and Arjen Robben has dragged a pretty average Netherlands to the semi finals. Keylor Navas was immense, following up his La Liga goalkeeper of the season with possibly the golden gloves here in Brazil.

Strikers have been pretty non existent, with only RvP as a contender for the golden boot, although he has not scored since the second group game. Higuain, until the last game, has been toothless, Fred woeful and Germany have played a lot without a natural striker out of the four semi finalists.

The problem with internationals is none of them get time to actually work as a team long enough to become any sort of great system. It's why people who say international friendlies are pointless really irk me, the international teams spend little enough time as it is!

Much as the 2010 tournament has been maligned, I'd say there were a few teams playing a better standard of football than we've seen so far at this World Cup.

International friendlies are pointless when they appear somewhat randomly mid season. One game is not going to make a team gel.
Doubt anyone thinks pre-tournament friendlies are pointless, it is just the mid season ones.

Isn't that because there are a series of FIFA-designated weeks set aside for qualifiers, regardless of the (con-)federation? It's only natural for national teams to want to make the most of those opportunities to try out new players, tactics, systems etc and/or get the team to gel better.

I think the real issue is that the overall fixture list nowadays is too clogged. The larger amount of European games for each league's top sides and the more physical nature of the game will always mean that the top players are more knackered by the time the WC comes around. That might be part of the reason the so-called weaker nations give the top teams more of a fight, as on the whole they'll generally have fewer players in the big European clubs and as a result will be a bit fresher come June/July.