How good was the 2006 World Cup?

Here are some interesting articles that I picked up from various websites. Take a look and ponder..


New stars are born...

In 1990 it was Roberto Baggio. In 1994 it was Romario. In 1998 it was Zinedine Zidane. In 2002 it was Ronaldinho. Great players have a tendency to emerge at the World Cup, where people from across the globe can watch them express their talent on the biggest stage of all.

It happened to the great Pele in 1958, the mercurial Johan Cruyff in 1974 and the legendary Diego Maradona in 1986. This World Cup in Germany has witnessed plenty of promising players, but there has been a genuine dearth of quality.

If the world's richest club in the transfer market, Chelsea, was looking for the player of the tournament to add to its illustrious squad, who would it choose? Ghana's Sulley Muntari and Asamoah Gyan stood out, as did Ivory Coast's Bakari Kone and Argentina's Maxi Rodriguez - scorer of one of the most wonderful World Cup goals in living memory. But none of these players was even among the 10 shortlisted for the Golden Ball award, given to the tournament's outstanding player. Of those 10, three are over 30 and the average age is 29.3. Going into the World Cup they all had major tournament experience.

While Messi and his fellow young Argentine striker Carlos Tevez were limited to bit parts, the stand-out for the South Americans was Maxi Rodriguez, the 25-year-old who scored three goals.The highlight was a breathtaking volley that gave Argentina their winner in extra-time against Mexico in the second round.It was all the more remarkable for coming from his weaker left foot - "the one I use for getting on the bus," he said.

Maxim Kalinichenko, a 26-year-old battling back after injury, looked outstanding on the wing for Ukraine in their quarter-final defeat by Italy, whipping over a series of crosses from the right that had the Italy defence in real trouble.

Philipp Lahm, the 22-year-old German full-back, scored the first goal of the tournament and was excellent in defence and dangerous in attack throughout.

The 2006 World Cup featured an official award for best young player but it must have been hard to come up with a shortlist.The award went to Lukas Podolski, the 21-year-old German striker who scored three goals but missed too many clear chances, especially when it really mattered in the semi-final defeat against Italy, to be considered a real success.

Other players tipped as contenders, including Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi, had little impact but there were a few older newcomers, as it were, who did shine at these finals.

The 23-year-old Franck Ribery had not started a game for France before the World Cup and ended up playing a major part to their run to the final.The winger, despite finishing on the losing side, did not let his side down in the final against Italy, almost scoring in extra time before he was substituted.

"The most important thing is to have lots of fun," he had said with refreshing calm before the semi-final win over Portugal.
"I'm young, I've got a great job and I'm enjoying myself. I don't see why I should put myself under any kind of pressure."

Ribery scored a fine goal in France's 3-1 win over Spain in the second round and impressed everyone with his skill on the ball.

The man who made the most spectacular breakthrough was arguably Italy's left-back Fabio Grosso, a 28-year-old late developer who was playing fourth division football five years ago.
Grosso played an impeccable role in the Italian defence that conceded just one goal on their way to the final.He also won the late penalty that gave Italy their victory over Australia, and curled in the goal that put the Azzurri ahead late in extra time in the semi-final against Germany. Grosso sealed his hero status by sealing Italy's World Cup win by netting the decisive spot-kick in the shootout.

In a World Cup that was so low on goals, it seemed fitting that it was a defender who made the biggest impact of any previously unknown player.

Classic goals...

Barely six minutes were on the clock in the opening game between Germany and Costa Rica when Philipp Lahm cut in from the left and curled a beauty into the top corner of Jose Porras' net.

That goal set the tone for the rest of the tournament.

Argentina lit up Group C with some great efforts, most notably Esteban Cambiasso's clinical finish against Serbia & Montenegro after a mouth-watering team move of 24 faultless passes.

Bakari Kone ran the length of the pitch before scoring against Holland; Joe Cole chested down and thumped home from 35 yards; Rodriguez wrote his name into World Cup folklore.

Yet, Rodriguez apart, the knockout stages failed to provide the kind of inspiration the World Cup is crying out for. Nine of Match of the Day's 10 goals of the tournament came from the group stages.

Goals dried up and players stopped shooting from 30 yards, preferring instead to pass the ball square so the team did not concede possession.

Even Fifa president Sepp Blatter raised concerns about the lack of goals produced by the world's finest footballers.

"The football isn't that bad, but there aren't enough goals - and, when there are too few goals, the public isn't very enthusiastic," said Blatter.
"The essence of the game is goals. If it's an open game, there is enough room for 11 players, but with 11 defenders there is not enough space."

Thank goodness then for Italians Fabio Grosso and Alessandro del Piero, scorers of the beautifully-taken semi-final goals against Germany that took Italy into the Finals.

Shock value...

Every World Cup needs a seismic shock to get the tournament going and warn the big teams they are not going to have it all their own way.

Cameroon stunned holders Argentina in the opening game of 1990, Senegal did the same to France in 2002.

Ghana did their best with a terrific 2-0 win over the Czech Republic to open up Group E, before tamely exiting the competition 3-0 at the hands of Brazil in the second round. Was Ghana even that much of a shock? We know all about the midfield dynamism of Chelsea's Michael Essien, and in captain Stephen Appiah they had a player who enjoyed a hugely successful two-year spell with Juventus.

Maybe that is the problem. Football has become much more global, and what might once have been a shock barely even registers now, so well do we know the major characters of even the lesser teams. The same can be said of the bigger teams - the Brazilians, the Argentines.

Whereas once the players would mostly play for teams in their own country, these days the vast majority of them already play in Europe by the time they feature in their first World Cup.
There is little or no mystique left, and the globalisation of football shows no sign of slowing down.

Why did we expect so much from Ronaldinho? Because we can see him play week-in, week-out for Champions League winners Barcelona and know him to be the finest footballer on the planet. Blanket coverage of English and European football all-year-round has left little to the imagination.

Iconic images...

It is never just about the games and the goals.

Cast your mind back to 1974 and Johan Cruyff's turn that so bemused Swedish right-back Gunnar Olsson. Or 1990 and Cameroonian Roger Milla's twinkle-toes celebrations.

These are images that will forever linger in the memory, that will be used time and again on television archive to show the World Cup finals in all its glory.

This year's World Cup may have been bereft of iconic players, but it has certainly had its fair share of iconic images.

Germany coach Jurgen Klinsmann kicked it all off, the former Spurs striker jumping around deliriously whenever his team found the back of the net - 14 times in all, making them the tournament's leading scorers.

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo may have been cast as the villain of the piece, but his gesture to the referee after Wayne Rooney's foul and subsequent wink to the bench after Rooney's red card have come to define another England exit.

Not forgetting Rooney's temper tantrum after being substituted against Sweden, Luis Figo's headbutt on Mark van Bommel, Philippe Senderos being covered in blood after scoring against South Korea or Fabio Grosso's impression of Marco Tardelli after his semi-final strike.

But Zidane saved the image that will haunt him for the rest of his life until 10 minutes from the end of extra-time in a remarkable final against Italy.

His last act as a footballer was to shove his head into the chest of Marco Materazzi, and with that his career, and France's World Cup dream, ended.

Azzurri show the other face of Italian game...

From shame and scandal to fame and glory in a month -- never have the two faces of Italian football been so sharply contrasting as in the past weeks.

While Italian prosecutors and defence lawyers picked through the details of a domestic match-fixing scandal, at the World Cup Italy's players delivered the perfect reminder of why, despite everything, their game is so respected.

The technique, the flair, the discipline and the passion of Marcello Lippi's team demonstrated all that is best in Italian football and rightly won plaudits crownded by their World Cup triumph over France on penalties.

Back home in Italy though, club officials, referees and Football Federation functionaries faced charges at a disciplinary tribunal with four top clubs facing possible demotion from Serie A if they are found to have tried to influence the outcome of games via interference in refereeing appointments.

Italy's success at the World Cup cannot cancel out what has been revealed about the shenanigans of recent years and nor should the scandal take anything away from what the Azzurri achieved in Germany.

But what Lippi's 23 players did is even more remarkable given the conditions in which they were forced to operate.Right from the moment the team got together at their plush Coverciano training complex near Florence -- where, according to the transcripts of telephone intercepts, some of the deals under investigation were struck -- the Azzurri had to deal with the fall-out from the scandal.

There were calls for Lippi to resign when his son became involved in a probe into a management agency and demands that captain Fabio Cannavaro be stripped off his position after he publicly defended former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who is at the centre of the scandal.

Keeper Gianluigi Buffon even had to leave the training camp to talk to a magistrate about his gambling on foreign games.

Every news conference centred on the scandal but once the Azzurri landed in Germany, Lippi pleaded for the attention to be placed on his team and their job at the World Cup -- it never quite happened.

After weeks of insisting his players were unaffected by the ongoing scandal back home, Lippi said, after the semi-final win over Germany, that his team had actually come together as a result of the affair.

"Certainly, initially, all the confusion that came out two or three months ago created a desire and a determination to respond, to show that Italian football is effective, real and strong on a technical and moral level. It helped to create a tight group," he said.

There was certainly a resentful feeling from the players that they, who have never been accused of any wrongdoing or any kind of involvement in the scandal, did not deserve to be viewed as guilty by association.

"Every time I have gone on the field, I have sweated and given my all," said midfielder Gennaro Gattuso when asked about the scandal.

Gattuso was among those who rejected calls from some politicians for a World Cup win to be rewarded with an amnesty for those accused of wrongdoing.

The performances of Italy's players at the World Cup surely demonstrate that they deserve better from those who run their game.

Third placing...

First up, we have Germany-Portugal for a meaningless third place game — so meaningless, in fact that FIFA was forced to say that, yep, they're keeping this match in future Cups. Why?

We have no idea. The last time a team actually played like it mattered was in 2002 when the Turks stormed a disappointed Korean side. Ok, that was four years ago, but still ...

Truth is, this is a sucker bet on Germany: Klinsi's boys want to go out with a bang and they face a team revealed as having little to no offense. This is a shame, because Portugal can play gorgeous football — they just cannot score when it counts. We have to think their heads will not be in this one despite it being Luis Figo's last game and that the hosts will run rampant.

Is this fair? That's a good question: We still think the German side — despite being young (along with all the other reasons we've heard from their passionate fane base telling us how wrong we are) — is not very good. We still think we saw a truer version of this side outside the World Cup and that it took the hosting bounce and ran with it. That's not to cast aspersions — we said the same about France in 1998 and South Korea in 2002 — but we fear for their chances in the upcoming European qualification rounds.

Final match...

A France-Italy final, of course, is a classic in the making. Never mind the romance of Zinedine Zidane; there's a ton of history here.

There's the 3-1 win for Italy in 1938 that served as a de-facto anti-fascist rally; the 1998 World Cup quarterfinal win for France when Luigi Di Biagio rocked his penalty attempt in the tie-break phase off the bar. And, of course, there's the infamous 2000 European Cup final, with an extra time 2-1 win for France from Juventus boy David Trezeguet.

The Italians haven't beaten France in their last six meetings, and a sentimentalist has to give the nod to a team with Zidane, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry. But the Italians have a lot of grit and power: Betting against Gennaro Gatttuso, Alessandro del Piero and the sublime Luca Toni could be foolhardy.

Certainly the Italian fans we talked to think so. They feel (as does the Italian press) that this matchup plays to their strengths: They know the French players from Serie A and the Champions League and feel that the battle will be won on technique, not grit. We think William Gallas, Willy Sagnol, and Claude Makelele may make them think twice. Any way you look at it, if both teams can shake off the tension and expectations of a final, this could be a superb game for a Cup that sorely needs one.