MCdread
Couldn't she get drowned?
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2001
- Messages
- 5,348
Today is day one after the WC. A month and 64 matches later, it's time to have an overview of the entire tournament. So, what do you think? Here are my views:
Brazil were worthy champions. They were the best team in the cup, although they did not look so dominant as other teams in the past. Scolari built an organised team, a bit like Parreira in 94, but in the end what made the diference was the individual quality of players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and Rivaldo. Ronaldo's coming back are good news to football, but it's not yet the Ronaldo of 96/97. Will he ever be? I think they were a bit lucky, but it's not their fault that Argentina, France and Italy killed themselves. I don't think I'd include them in the top 10 winning teams of the history, but still, they were the best.
Germany regained the respect of the world again and I salute that. In the end they lacked players that could decide a match, and Kahn made his only mistake when it was forbidden, but the 2nd place is already a great achievement for what someone called "the worst german team ever". In 2006 they will play at home, and with Frings, Metzelder, Schneider, Ballack, stars of this WC, and other youngsters like Kehl, Enke and Deisler (Germany's Ronaldo, in quality and bad luck with injurees), plus Kahn and Nowotny (if they handle another 4 years), the future seems bright, and I'm already puting them near the pole-position.
Revelation teams were Korea, Senegal and Turkey. I have doubts that the koreans will be in conditions to put on a show like this in 2006, far away from home. Turkey, with 66 million inhabitants is a power for the future.
Deceptions were clearly France, Argentina, Italy and Portugal. They lacked players in shape, and with the motivation after a dreadful season. And their coaches were also very bad, especially Lemerre and Oliveira. England was also very disapointing in the clash against Brazil. If they had the determination of their german rivals, we would now be hailing a different world champion...
Regarding the players, I believe there was no dominant player as in some other cups. I would not mention Maradona in 1986, because that's a class appart, but there was no player like Romário and Baggio in 1994 for example. Of course, Ronaldo scored 8 goals, the best since 1970, but in half of them he only had to capitalise on his teammates good work. However, with 8 goals and 2 of them in the final, he still gets my vote for the player of the tournament award.
The greatest flukes of the cup were in my opinion Henry, Figo, Verón, Totti and Maldini, all of them highly paid stars and all of them would be better now, had they stayed at home. I already knew players like El Hadjy Diouf, Klose, Metzelder or Ronaldinho, so they were no surprise to me. The only two revelations that really impressed me, because I didn't know them, were Kleberson and Donovan. They have a great future.
Finally, the referees: fortunately, in the last four games FIFA was more carefull in the nominations, and all went well. But the image that stays is not good. In general, this was the worst WC I can remember in terms of referees. FIFA must take a serious look on this.
This was my fifth World Cup and I'm a collector of past WC classics (I have now 12 of the 17 finals on video, plus some other all-time classics), so in the end I have to say that this was not a great WC.
In fact I think it was probably the second worst ever, only better than Italy'90. The referees were quite bad, and so was football in general. There was no game that can be called a classic, only the final, no tactical inovations, and the goal scoring average was the second lowest ever. The lowest: Italy'90...
And now it's countdown to Portugal'2004 and Germany 2006!
Brazil were worthy champions. They were the best team in the cup, although they did not look so dominant as other teams in the past. Scolari built an organised team, a bit like Parreira in 94, but in the end what made the diference was the individual quality of players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and Rivaldo. Ronaldo's coming back are good news to football, but it's not yet the Ronaldo of 96/97. Will he ever be? I think they were a bit lucky, but it's not their fault that Argentina, France and Italy killed themselves. I don't think I'd include them in the top 10 winning teams of the history, but still, they were the best.
Germany regained the respect of the world again and I salute that. In the end they lacked players that could decide a match, and Kahn made his only mistake when it was forbidden, but the 2nd place is already a great achievement for what someone called "the worst german team ever". In 2006 they will play at home, and with Frings, Metzelder, Schneider, Ballack, stars of this WC, and other youngsters like Kehl, Enke and Deisler (Germany's Ronaldo, in quality and bad luck with injurees), plus Kahn and Nowotny (if they handle another 4 years), the future seems bright, and I'm already puting them near the pole-position.
Revelation teams were Korea, Senegal and Turkey. I have doubts that the koreans will be in conditions to put on a show like this in 2006, far away from home. Turkey, with 66 million inhabitants is a power for the future.
Deceptions were clearly France, Argentina, Italy and Portugal. They lacked players in shape, and with the motivation after a dreadful season. And their coaches were also very bad, especially Lemerre and Oliveira. England was also very disapointing in the clash against Brazil. If they had the determination of their german rivals, we would now be hailing a different world champion...
Regarding the players, I believe there was no dominant player as in some other cups. I would not mention Maradona in 1986, because that's a class appart, but there was no player like Romário and Baggio in 1994 for example. Of course, Ronaldo scored 8 goals, the best since 1970, but in half of them he only had to capitalise on his teammates good work. However, with 8 goals and 2 of them in the final, he still gets my vote for the player of the tournament award.
The greatest flukes of the cup were in my opinion Henry, Figo, Verón, Totti and Maldini, all of them highly paid stars and all of them would be better now, had they stayed at home. I already knew players like El Hadjy Diouf, Klose, Metzelder or Ronaldinho, so they were no surprise to me. The only two revelations that really impressed me, because I didn't know them, were Kleberson and Donovan. They have a great future.
Finally, the referees: fortunately, in the last four games FIFA was more carefull in the nominations, and all went well. But the image that stays is not good. In general, this was the worst WC I can remember in terms of referees. FIFA must take a serious look on this.
This was my fifth World Cup and I'm a collector of past WC classics (I have now 12 of the 17 finals on video, plus some other all-time classics), so in the end I have to say that this was not a great WC.
In fact I think it was probably the second worst ever, only better than Italy'90. The referees were quite bad, and so was football in general. There was no game that can be called a classic, only the final, no tactical inovations, and the goal scoring average was the second lowest ever. The lowest: Italy'90...And now it's countdown to Portugal'2004 and Germany 2006!
However, his skill at 33 might still be a valuable asset to a team, unless injuries do him in...
