What We Learned From The World Cup Finals


Goal Of The Tournament – And The First Shall Be The Best

Tshabalala’s great opening strike was outstanding, not simply for the sheer elan with which he smashed it into the Mexican’s net as for the promise it offered. Here was a goal formed on the playing fields of the best fast-flowing counterattacking sides. A defence splitting pass placed perfectly into the path of a sprinting Tshabalala, who just slammed it into the net. It raised hopes that this World Cup would be about skill and daring and excitement, that someone in Africa would rise to challenge the monoliths (if you can have monoliths that is) of European and South American dominance, that this World Cup would be about the joy of football rather than the stunning negativity, insecurity and fear of most tournament football. Sadly after this moment it was pretty much all downhill.

Not Goal Of The Tournament – Somewhat Spoilt For Choice

We could have Ghana’s non-goal that was blocked on the line by the hand of Dirty Suarez in the Quarter Finals. Or the American’s goal that never was against Slovenia. Or, it might seem, the Italian’s last minute almost-equaliser against the mighty Slovakia. Certainly the FIFA linesmen, who were by and large excellent, seemed to have mislaid their goalmouth specs on something of a regular basis. However, Not Goal Of The Tournament has to go to Frank Lampard’s chip and blip off the crossbar against Germany. Just like an overly imaginative fisherman’s tale, the gap between the line and the ball will only ever get bigger in the telling. However, the failure to give the goal will have two major positive effects on the game, it’s so blatantly a goal that FIFA will have to investigate the use of goalline technology and it won’t be allowed to cover up the myriad of failings of the useless Engerland side.

Best Chant Of The Tournament

Not a lot of choice here as the vuvuzela managed to successfully bloat out pretty much all attempts at chanting. However, the continued booing of Dirty Suarez during the Semi-Final against Holland was exceedingly gratifying. But the winner is the England fans’ reaction to the disallowed (non-allowed?) Not Goal, which was both the loudest and the best chant of the tournament. A World Cup half a world away, broadcast to billions, and the crowd is all singing ‘The Referee’s a wanker’ at the tops of their voices. That was a moment for Sepp Blatter to have nightmares about.

Best Sporting Moment Of The Tournament

It lasted the best part of three days and it wasn’t even in the same continent. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut’s amazing fifth set at Wimbledon was everything that sport should be about, excellence of technique, power of will, composure, discipline, psychological gamesmanship, physical agility and fitness, skill, daring and channelled aggression. They played more minutes in that one set than most players played in the entire World Cup. They didn’t blink, whine, pout, dive, get scared. And it was just a first round match.

Best Least Sporting Moment Of The Tournament

Hands up Dirty Suarez. Sure we might all have done it, it might even have been ‘instinctive’ rather than blatantly deliberate, but you know what, I hope we wouldn’t have. And, yes, almost no one would be bothered if only Gyan had scored the resulting penalty and Ghana had gone through. But this was another example of the extreme cynicism that dominated the World Cup, a moment where the punishment quite patently didn’t match the crime. You have to think that a penalty goal and a yellow card would be a better punishment for this sort of thing. Sure less drama, but quite patently a fairer result.

Best Team Of The Tournament

Most goals, top goalscorer, best young player, most exciting team, and not one, not two, but three four goal thrashings on their way to a Semi-Final loss to eventual winners Spain sees Germany win Best Team. Oh how we laughed when they gave Oztralia the kicking they so richly deserved, oh how we didn’t (well we did but in a crazy schadenfreude sort of way) when they mercilessly dished out the same drubbing to Engerland. And oh how we laughed again when they mullered the crazy Argies. And we can blame it all on divetastic ex-Spur Jurgen Klinsmann. Unlike the useless Engerland, Germany showed all the benefits of ambition, long-term planning, attacking philosophy and preparation. And, unlike pretty much every other team here, Germany came here to win the World Cup rather than simply gain it by not losing. The only team whose matches I’ve bothered to keep.

Least Best Team Of The Tournament

Hmmmm. Where to start? The pitiful inadequacy of both Cameroon and North Korea, neither of whom scored a point. The pulse-draining soul-sapping mediocrity of all those sides hopped up on fear and inadequacy that aimed to stifle the opposition and kill the game. The European giants who didn’t perform, like Italy and France. No, there’s really only one Least Best Team, the now utterly unmighty Engerland. The oldest squad in the tournament should have been chock full of big game, big tournament experience if nothing else, but instead seemed to have cornered the market on fear, insecurity and doubt. They also seemed to have left their footballing basics somewhere else as simple acts like passing seemed utterly beyond them. Apparently riven by strife, inadequacy, boredom and sexual jealousy, they were so bad that their flaccid performances in World Cup 2006 seemed like memories of the Elysian Fields.  If what we do in life does, indeed, echo through eternity, then these guys are going to be hearing the boos that accompanied them off the pitch against Algeria for a very long time.

One Response to “What We Learned From The World Cup Finals”

  1.  Charles Frith Says:

    I’ve enjoyed every single one of your posts. I wrote about the world cup last time with a lot of passion but this one just slipped me by except for the most excellent news that I didn’t miss out on much except for every game I read about but didn’t watch. I got the skinny. I spoke with reasonable confidence when it came up in conversation.

    Though it takes an unusual type of honesty for a football fanatic, as you must be I’m assuming, to write your ‘best sporting moment’ paragraph.

    Solid Gold that. And thank you too. Great blogging.