World Cup Heroes and Villains

Heroes

Zinedine Zidane – showed why he is one of the most feared players in the world today. Single handedly bought France through the group stages all the way through to the final.

Italy – for winning and being the most consistent team in the tournament.

Fabio Cannavaro – for playing the game the right way

Germany – for hosting an excellent tournament, and for never knowing when to quit

Jurgen Klinsmann – for proving his doubters wrong, and for bringing some enthusiasm to the technical area

Argentina – for their outstanding performance against Serbia, the best goal and the best game of the entire tournament

Villains

Zinedine Zidane – for a disgraceful head butt in the World Cup final, letting himself down, his team down and his country down,

Christiano Ronaldo – for being a cheat and encouraging the ref to send off one of his colleagues

Argentina – for their disgraceful scenes after losing to the Germans

Frank Lampard and Ronaldinho – World footballer of the year, and the runner up. Definitely not on this performance

Graham Poll – for issuing 3 yellow cards to one player in the same game

Portugal and Holland – for their disgraceful game in the last sixteen

Brazil – for being hailed as the best and for being totally rubbish

Congratulations - ITALY

That’s it then, it has all finished and after two and a half hours of football and penalties the new champions of the World are Italy. Did they deserve it? On the night no, as the better overall team yes. The one thing though that this World Cup final will be remembered for though is the sending off of the legendary Zinedine Zidane in his last ever game of professional football. He unleashed an outrageous head butt that floored his opponent and all because he allegedly called him a name. Where was his discipline and self control. France were starting to assert themselves and looked the more likely winners until this happened. Whatever he was called surely could not be something he had never heard before and could have been something he dealt with when the game was finished. He had demonstrated his ability to score penalties in the semi-final and final and could now have to face up to the fact that he may have lost his team mates the trophy.

The game itself was a little disappointing, mainly because the Italians did not live up to their semi-final performance. Instead of pushing on from their good first half they became a team that was afraid to lose and let France back in to dominate the closing stages. Had Zidane not been sent off their was a very real chance they could have lost. This is to take nothing away from the excellent performance of their captain Cannavaro who had the ultimate pleasure of lifting the world Cup on his 100th appearance for his country. Italian football may be in turmoil, but they are now the World Champions and will need to be treated with the utmost respect by the teams they face in the European Championship qualifiers. They are the big winners of this years world cup and later on this week I will discuss the winners and losers of this years tournament, and you can probably expect Zidane to fall in both categories.

World Cup Final Preview

France vs Italy

Well it's here at last after 5 long weeks I will soon be able to go back to blogging about something else. It is the final we all hoped for after the semi-final line up, and now we can only hope that they both come out and play good open football to make it a final to remember. On the balance of things Italy should win, they have played the better football through out the competition. France themselves have improved with every game, but they did take part in the most boring game of the tournament against Switzerland.

One thing that cannot be ruled out though is this will be Zidane's last ever competitive football game and he will want to retire on the ultimate high note. He has certainly inspired France and if the Italian midfield do not find a way to stop him then he will hold the key. If the Thierry Henry who plays in the premiership turns up, then Cannavaro will also have his hands full for the night. For Italy, Totti and Toni should be big dangers, and they do have a far superior keeper in Buffon. They are desperate to win to show the world that despite all the current allegations there is still some pride in Italian football. For me Italy need to win this to put some kind of credibility into this World Cup, they should win by 1-0 just for old times sake.

A triumph for football

At last a triumph for football over mediocrity. OK that's a bit harsh on the Germans as they played their part in one of the best World cup semi-finals I have seen for many years. Even though it took them 118 minutes to score a goal, it was worth the wait. I think that everyone, including myself, was expecting a close affair with neither side wanting to commit too many players forward for fear they may lose. In contrast we got a very open game that demonstrated that if played properly that football is indeed the beautiful game.

The sheer ability and guile of the Italians finally got the better of the workmanlike Germans. Their short passing was easy on the eye and they must now be favourites to win. We can only hope that we get the same kind of result tonight and look forward to a feast of football in the final on Sunday. For the first and only time in my life COME ON FRANCE

World Cup - Semi-Final Preview Part 2

France vs Portugal

For the good of football France need to win, we cannot have two teams in the final that want to play for penalties. Let us all hope we see Ronaldo crying his eyes out after the French give them a 2-0 hiding

World Cup - Semi-Final Preview Part 1

Germany vs Italy

Two of the stalwarts of European football go into battle tomorrow night. For the competition we need Germany to win, for footballs sake we need Italy. This World Cup has seen the success of team who have got better as the tournament has progressed. However it does not take away from the fact that this is a very average German side. They showed absolutely no ambition against Argentina, and only attacked when they were behind. And once they scored it was back to defence again.

In contrast Italy, who cheated their way past Australia, looked really good in destroying the Ukraine and their overall attitude at this World Cup has been positive. If Toni really does have his scoring boots on the Germans could find themselves in trouble. If you add to that the miserly defence that they have it looks like we could be in for a long night. I hope Italy win, and then go onto win the World Cup, they deserve it. 1-0 to the Italy

Bugger, and the French won as well

Well it could not have turned out to be a worse day if it had tried. Firstly England lose yet again on penalties, and then the bloody French go and beat Brazil, thus ensuring that the the final will not be contested with any of the best footballing teams in the competition. I cannot comment on the game, I didn't watch it, I couldn't bring myself to. So its safe to say France probably deserved it, but right now I just don't care.

Why? Well basically because England were absolutely robbed by Portugal yesterday. I can sit here and argue for hours about the ref, and Rooney etc., but I won't because actually the ref was OK and if you really press me I may agree he should have sent Rooney off. Why do I think we were robbed. Because we created the most chances, we played better and we probably should have scored. Robinson had one save to make, just one. The Portuguese tactic was clear from the start, frustrate them and wind up Rooney. They did a good job.

Could Sven have done better, I think so. Lampard still failed to deliver and it would have made more sense to go to 4-4-2 in the second half. He may well have done this had Rooney not got sent off. He should have done it from the start and really attacked them, we would have won. Sometimes u need to be bold, when it matters, try and win the game not worry about not losing. 4-4-2 would have won us the World Cup, 4-5-1 never would. So we now move into the McLaren era, one that needs to be successful for the FA's sake as well as the fans. Lets hope we see someone unafraid to drop key players and who will take an attacking outlook, bring on Euro 2008, but please no more penalty shootouts

Germany and Italy

Germany and Italy came through their respective quarter finals yesterday. Italy had a relatively easy task and will be pleased with the way that they played in beating Ukraine 3-0. Their much mentioned striker Toni, finally came up trumps and score a couple of goalscorers goals. The Ukraine never really got into the game and their nerves appeared to get the better of them on what was their biggest occasion. Towards the end of the game their were moments of great skill, but by then the Italians were in cruise mode. They will now be looking forward to their meeting with the Germans, as they will fancy their chances to make yet another World Cup final.

In contrast the game between the Germany and Argentina was a much tighter affair. Germany started off debuting their 1-10-0-0 formation showing little ambition to win the game at all. The Argentines had a massive amount of possession but could not break down the German defence, until early in the second half. Once they scored, and started to believe that they would win the game their manager got too confident and removed some of their better players. This only gave the Germans more confidence and after a couple of handy substitutions later and they equalized. From that goal onwards it was only ever going to end up as a game won on penalties. Germany triumphed, not the right result for football but it does go to show never right of the Germans. Let's hope that along with Italy they show a lot more class on Tuesday