NEW SEASON COULD SERVE UP A TREAT
The German bierkellers have been restocked, Brazil's collective therapy is well under way and Luis Suarez has left the feast.
But the imminent arrival of the new Barclays Premier League season still promises plenty for football fans who were left feeling empty by England's abject World Cup capitulation.
As sure as each new August eases round, the giants of the domestic game are jostling for major transfer targets while racking up the air miles on pre-season tours.
Louis van Gaal greeted his opening week as Manchester United manager by indicating his concern over the club's exhaustive yet no doubt commercially lucrative trip to the United States.
If Van Gaal's bullish beginning is anything to go by, the respect expressed by Chelsea boss and now Premier League rival Jose Mourinho may be destined to last roughly as long as a Uruguayan shoulder-chomp.
Van Gaal knows only too well his Old Trafford revolution must show teeth from the start, while Mourinho, having prematurely conceded last season's title to the relatively urbane Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City, faces a similar degree of pressure.
That pressure can only have been enhanced by an impressive early summer transfer haul at Stamford Bridge, with Diego Costa and former Gunner Cesc Fabregas the headline acts in a number of impressive arrivals.
On each side of Manchester they are taking a little longer to flex their full transfer muscle, but over at Anfield Brendan Rodgers has been seeking to get full value out of the tens of millions of pounds burning a hole in his pocket since Suarez's departure.
How to replace the man regarded by many to be the best striker in the world? Tottenham's travails in the wake of Gareth Bale's big-money exit last season provide a potent example of how it is never as easy as simply splashing the cash.
Can the likes of Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Lazar Markovic really ensure a repeat of Liverpool's superb start to the 2013-14 campaign given the inevitable blunting of their attacking edge?
Arsenal, meanwhile, may have pulled off one of the summer's transfer coups by landing Chilean star Alexis Sanchez, a deal which gives Arsene Wenger's men realistic hope of edging once again into the all-important top four.
Everton and Tottenham will once more lead the race of remaining fringe contenders, the Toffees buoyed by an impressive first season from Roberto Martinez while the shrewd appointment of Mauricio Pochettino at White Hart Lane should pay dividends.
At the other end of the table, new boys Leicester, Burnley and QPR will see mere survival as success, though recent history suggests it is far from a foregone conclusion that they will be fighting it out to avoid the bottom three.
Garry Monk's Swansea, Alan Irvine's West Brom and Gus Poyet's Sunderland have done little to suggest they face anything other than another season of struggle, while continued restlessness around St James' Park could cost Newcastle and in particular Alan Pardew.
The World Cup may be over, but once again the majority of its stars will congregate in the Premier League. For all those who remain, there is plenty to get their teeth into.
