Yesterday’s final ushered me into an emotional, existential Kalahari. Unable to resume life as usual here in South Africa, whatever that means, my therapy consists in part of playing everyone’s favorite fun game: World Cup All-Stars, version 2.0 (click here for 1.0).
Initially, the simple choice was to pick the entire Spain squad with just two changes: Fucile for Capdevila and Forlan for Torres/Pedro. But that wouldn’t be much fun. So here are my picks:
Neuer
Fucile, Juan, Pique, Sergio Ramos
Mueller, Schweinsteiger, Xavi, Sneijder
Villa, Forlan
Best Players: Forlan and Sergio Ramos (because defenders are people too)
Goal of the Tournament: Van Bronckhorst in Netherlands v Uruguay (quality and importance)
Best Match of the Tournament: USA-Slovenia 2-2 (which should have gone down as one of the greatest comeback victories in World Cup history, right Mr. Coulibaly?)
Best Referee: Viktor Kassai of Hungary (This cool cat ref’d one of the cleanest World Cup semifinals ever: Spain-Germany)
Best Moments: Tshabalala’s goal for Bafana in the opener vs Mexico (when, for a few minutes, it seemed another World Cup was possible) and Buffon signing my daughters’ jersey and flag before Slovakia-Italy.
Tag: David Villa
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World Cup All-Stars 1.0
With two days off before the quarterfinals, it’s an opportune time to take stock of the top performers of South Africa 2010 so far. The team lines up in the widely used 4-3-2-1 ‘Christmas tree’ formation with no more than two players from one nation. Here are my picks:
Julio Cesar
Salcido, Mertesacker, Pique, Maicon
Kuyt, Mascherano, Oezil
Villa, Messi
Suarez
Honorable mention: Sneijder, Forlan, and Gyan
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‘The 100 Best Players in the World’
British football magazine FourFourTwo, just published (in the November issue) the list of the “100 Best Players in the World.” The choices are based on the input of the magazine’s journalists. Of course it will lead to all kinds of debate as “lists” are always subjective and don’t mean anything beyond getting fans talking. Generally I agree with the list. If you haven’t seen the list, here’s the top ten (I’ve listed them by country, since that’s an affiliation that does not change):