There were more head injuries at this year’s World Cup than in recent soccer memory. Oddly, one of them was followed by the tournament’s greatest overall defensive performance, by the Argentine midfielder Javier Mascherano, who, after being knocked out in the middle of his team’s semifinal victory over the Netherlands, returned to make several game-saving plays. Another was followed by what we normally see after a concussion: complete disorientation, in the case of Christoph Kramer of Germany, who was pulled from the game, perhaps without his even being aware of it, 14 minutes after the collision that caused his in yesterday’s final.

Luis Suarez, one of the world’s best players, became fodder for the comedian in every one of us after he bit an opposing player for the third time in his career—and then lied about it for days afterward, almost completely erasing one of the single greatest performances of the World Cup, when he scored two brilliantly brutal goals to knock England out of the tournament in the game before.

Costa Rica re-wrote its country’s entire sporting history when it finished first in its group, with two wins and a draw over three countries (Italy, Uruguay, and England) that together had won seven World Cups, three more than Costa Rica had even competed in. And it continued writing that history all the way to the quarterfinals, where it lost on penalties to the Netherlands.

Over the last month we saw all of these and more (and by “more,” I mean the Netherlands’ Robin van Persie’s balletic swan-dive goal in the team’s opening-game victory over defending champion Spain, but you can fill in here whatever your favorite moments were). But after the overwhelming drama of so many all-or-nothing matches played out against the outsize backdrop of the World Cup in Brazil—the world’s biggest sporting event in that sport’s world capital—and under pressure of potential rioting if Brazil failed to deliver (which hardly did materialize after Brazil so spectacularly did fail to deliver), we’re now confronted with the return to the mundane routine of our everyday lives.

There are no shortages of things that now demand our attention. There are responsibilities that had gone neglected for the last 30 days that need attending to. There are friendships to rekindle—people who didn’t live and die with the kick of the Brazuca, the name of this year’s World Cup soccer ball, actually do exist. There are even other sports to watch (LeBron James, who was in Rio de Janeiro for yesterday’s final, seems to be doing everything he can to remind us of that). But there’s no more World Cup. There are no more crying Latin footballers on the front pages of newspapers. There are no more unifying viewing parties taking place simultaneously all across the world. There are no more reasons to contact other World Cup enthusiasts you only speak to every time one of these events is held. And there won’t be for another four years, when there will be a whole new set of story lines to follow, a new breakout star to follow, and maybe even a new champion.

But what are we going to do until then?

David Gendelman is research editor atVanity Fair.Follow him on Twitter at @gendelmand.