Best world cup ever?

[Archie's penalty]

Ok so it started terribly but this World Cup has got better and better. We've had great goals, drama, unpredictability. The question is, is this the best World Cup ever?

[PlasticRoyale]

Srsly, who cares?

[Urinal Mint]

Ok so it started terribly but this World Cup has got better and better. We've had great goals, drama, unpredictability. The question is, is this the best World Cup ever?

it has to be mexico 86. the previous tournament in spain in 1982 ran it close imo, and was amazing in itself, the football was fantastic, there were many memorable moments. mexico on the other hand, seemed different, more exciting, more exotic, a different world. the pictures and footage from Mexico had that grainy feeling. the stars of the tournament roll off the tongue like a cast list of 80s greats; preben elkjaer, enzo francescoli, karl-heinz rummenigge, emilio butragueno, socrates, michael laudrup, hugo sanchez, michel platini, terry tenwick... and diego maradona.

i remember watching losimar lashing one into the top corner on his debut (?) from 30 yards against northern ireland and russia's vasily rats firing a bolt into the other top corner against france. also from long distance, as the ball seemed to do strange things at altitude in the rarefied mexican air. similar in many ways to this jabalani ball that hasn't proved very popular with most teams.

laudrup's mazy run through the uruguay defence and near post finish in a 6-1 rout as the danes passed them to death. uruguay just couldn't cope with the power and strength of elkjaer who scored a hat trick iirc. the danes looked irresistable, but were then given a thrashing themselves as they crashed out 5-1 (i think it was 5-1) to spain in the knockout stages, butragueno scored four and i remember my father making a couple of hundred pound on this game. spain then lost to belgium, led by one of my favourite players as a child - enzo scifo.

i think i remember the belgians edging out the soviet union in a seven goaler? mental. it was a free scoring tournement, 132 in total (google), and any team looked capable of beating the other. it was unpredictable, with an unusual amount of penalty shoot outs. what more could you ask for? which brings us nicely to england who scraped through their group with gary lineker's late night hat trick against the polish 3-0.

it was also the last tournament i can remember where you could tackle hard and get stuck in. despite that, i don't recall much diving or feigning injury. they just got on with it, or got revenge later. if teams tackled like that now, there would be no players left on the pitch. i think it still holds the record for the fastest red card in world cup history, uruguay's batista after only 56 seconds against the jocks.

There were great teams too; the french who went into the tournement as european champions, led by platini, who had been named european player of the year for the previous three years i think. jean-pierre papin, jean tigana, alain giresse, luis fernandez, manuel amoros, maxime bossis.
the brazil team of that era was equally spectacular, and included legends such as zico, eder, falcao, careca, socrates, junior and branco. (i can remember kicking balloons around my livingroom pretending to be these players). france's 1/4 final with Brazil took the tournament to new heights and was an epic game. tied at 1-1 in the second half, zico, of all people, saw his second half penalty saved by the french keeper (bats?). extra time ensued and in the final minute of the 120 france's bellone raced through and was felled on the edge of the box by the brazilian keeper as the striker tried to take it round him. bellone managed to stay on his feet but lost control of the ball. It looked a certain red for the keeper and a dangerous free-kick in platini territory on the edge of the box. the referee's decision; ignore it. unbelivable. So it went to a penalty shoot out. despite Platini missing his pen, brazil missed two and rance went through. bellone even managed some kind of karmic revenge as his spot-kick hit the post and then went in off carlos. probably my favourite all time game in world cup football. as a kid i was hooked from here on.

strangely, all the 1/4 finals went to penalties, except the argies england game. no need to elaborate there.

diego maradona lead his team into the final against the germans, in front of something like 110,000 people. his second goal against england was later voted goal of the century in an online poll. he had almost single handedly carried his team to the final and was by far the best player in the world at that time.

nothing has since come close for me. i still have the sticker album in the loft, minus two stickers to complete the book.

[Wycombe Royal]

No, I'd have it down as one of the worst.

[paultheroyal]

No, I'd have it down as one of the worst.

I would agree with that. Too many star teams and star players under performed. What shocks we do have are not big shocks. Some of the quality performing stars at this tournie are previous has beens. Free kicks have been woeful. Quality of goals in play have in most part being nothing short of ordinary. Nothing against South Africa creating own atmosphere with the horns, but it does not work and does not feel like a football match.

Shaping up for a Holland Germany final and a nil nil, which would sum up the tournament for me. Quite board of it now.

Reading vs Scunthorpe >>>>>>>> world cup 2010

[Rex]

And that is mightily bad.

[Archie's penalty]

Completely disagree WR and PtR.

Has been a great world cup. New stars have emerged - Suarez, Mueller, Ozil and some of the old stars have been good - Villa, Klose.

Forlan has been superb, Ghana have delighted, Argentina were good in patches.

Honestly I don't know what you people want sometimes.

141 goals so far - another 7 and it beats the 2006 goals tally. It needs another 21 to beat the 2002 goal tally and 31 to beat the 1998 goal tally.

Still I think it's been fun.

[Baines]

If you switched on hoping to see a glorified Nike advert in which the biggest stars turned it on, then you will have been deservedly disappointed. If you just like to watch football, then you probably will have found it a very good and fascinating (although only occasionally exhilarating) finals.

[Silver Fox]

Shaping up for a Holland Germany final and a nil nil,

If a Holland v Germany final ends 0-0 I will buy two hats and put mayo on one and sauerkraut on the other and tuck in

[Row Z Royal]

Shaping up for a Holland Germany final and a nil nil,

If a Holland v Germany final ends 0-0 I will buy two hats and put mayo on one and sauerkraut on the other and tuck in

Would you like a bowler chips with that?



RIP Glo.

[Mr Angry]

Generally, I have found it disappointing, though there have been some sporadically exciting moments (USA v Slovenia, the last bit of Ghana v Uruguay, The Germans and the Argentinians, Slovakia v Italy, France v South Africa and the way New Zealand fought like lions to get their draw against Italy).

Why? 3 main reasons.

I think the ball has been a nightmare; for example, how many goals from direct free kicks have there been, or wonder strikes from outside the area? Few and far between. Far more goals scored from set pieces (excluding direct shots from a free kick) than I can remember from any World Cup, and very few "WOW!!" moments (2nd Tevez goal v Mexico, Prince Boateng's goal for Ghana, and Forlan's equaliser in the Ghana/Uruguay quarter final, the Japan v Denmark free kicks). Also, the number of times a player's first touch has been poor, or a long crossfield pass has bounced 8 feet over a players head suggests to me that there is a very real problem with the footballs they are playing with.

I also think that this has been an overly defensive World Cup; take away the 12 goals in 3 games by the Germans, or the 7 for Portugal v North Korea, and suddenly that goals per game average looks very average indeed. Far too often we have seen dull defensive football where teams have thought first to nullify their opponents rather than simply going for it; Portugal, Paraguay and Brazil come to mind. It has made for some truly terrible games.

Finally, I think too many of the genuine star players simply haven't turned up, and yes, its great to see players like Suarez, Forlan, Mueller and Ozil coming to the fore, but where was Messi? Kaka? Drogba? Ronaldo? Anyone in a French/Italian/England shirt? Is Torres AT this World Cup?? As a football fan I want to see these players light up the World Cup, as players like Pele, Cruyff, Baggio, Maradona, Socrates, Zico and many others have done before, and it simply hasn't happened.

Finally, despite some shocking (and well documented) cock-ups, I actually think that the officiating has been pretty good in this tournament, though I would like FIFA to retrospectively punish offenders(eg: the play acting by the Ivory Coast player to get Kaka red-carded) and to have given Suarez a greater ban for his handball than a single match ban.

[Baines]

Why would you take away the 12 goals in 3 matches from Germany? Particularly as 2 of those matches were against seeded/pot 1 teams.

[Mr Angry]

Simply from a statistical point of view, they stand out massively.

Only 3 teams scored 4 goals or more in a game; the afore-mentioned Germany and Portugal (who failed to score in any match apart from their 2nd half romp against North Korea) and Argentina who put 4 past South Korea. So out of nearly 60 games, only in 5 has a team scored 4 goals or more, or indeed, have there been 4 goals or more scored.

That doesn't strike me as a particularly actioned packed tournament.

[Baines]

It doesn't seem very sensible to take out some of the most exciting games before considering whether the world cup has been any good.

Also, plenty of the low-scoring games have been exciting. Just going back to Friday - Ghana 1-1 Uruguay (over 120 mins) was a very good game.

[Mr Angry]

Its just my opinion; please feel free to disagree with it.

[Maguire]

Yeah I think it's massaging the stats somewhat to start discounting games for no reason other than there were lots of goals in them :-/ We might as well pretend England beat Algeria 3-0 "because they should have done" and call it quites.

World Cup got off to a very poor start but has become increasingly intriguing. Personally I don't care who the hero is - it's no disappointment to me if Moeller or Forlan get top scorer rather than Rooney or Messi. What difference does it make whether the pin-ups produce or not? As long as somebody does.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

The 4 quarter finals were all excellent.

shame about the previous 56 games.

[southbank1871]

The 4 quarter finals were all excellent.

shame about the previous 56 games.

Since the first round of group games where it seemed to be all about not losing, it's been an excellent world cup IMO.

[sheshnu]

People complain all year that the Premier League (and other top leagues around Europe) is too predictable, same old teams winning the same old prizes. Now people are complaining that the same old teams aren't doing well in the World Cup? I suppose we have two previous winners in the last four, but did anybody here correctly predict the quarter-finalists?

High scoring or not, there have been a lot of interesting games and more than enough surprise results; I for one have enjoyed watching some of the 'lesser known' players doing well.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Not so much the entertainment factor, more the quality of football. Which, for a World Cup has been basically nothing short of awful.

is it 3 goals scored direct from Free Kicks?

And only 20 headed goals in the whole tournament? In 60 games? i can barely recall a single move where a great cross was followed by a great header, the best goals to watch.

And throw in some quite pathetic penalty taking as well and some dire refereeing with the usual high standard of cheating from players.

A very poor standard World Cup in which most of the top players have badly flopped. Klose & Podolski? Do me a favour these guys are second rate reserve team players.

DUMP world cup.