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Now that the month long football carnival is nearly over, these are my memories of the major highlights. While I did not watch every single game I saw the vast majority and can only comment on the ones that I did. Two matches are also still ahead which may change these opinions

Best Team – Despite the travesty of justice in the game against the Socceroos I still feel that Italy was the best allround team irrespective of what will happen in the Final.

Most Disapponting Team – England despite reaching the Quarter Finals

Best Player – Andrea Pirlo (Italy) primarily for his superb performance in the semi final

Best Goal – The magical 24 touch wonder goal by Cambiasso for Argentina against Serbia

Best Goalkeeper – Found it easy to settle for Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon

Best Young Player – Based on potential rather than performance in this World Cup I go for Argentina’s Lionel Messi

Best Coach/Manager – A toss up between Marcello Lippi and Jurgen Klinsmann and for the life of me I cannot separate them. Lippi for taking a team under a huge amount of pressure into the final and Klinsmann for changing the face of German football. Possibly Lippi by a whisker.

Most Dramatic Game – The 2-2 draw between Australia and Croatia

Best Technical Game – The semi final between heavyweights Italy and Germany

Best Comeback – Australia’s 3-1 victory over Japan when the Socceroos came back from a goal down with 6 minutes remaining

Most Dramatic Decision – The penalty awarded to Italy against Australia with just 10 seconds remaining to extra time

Best Over Achievers – Very close between Ghana and Australia with the Socceroos slightly ahead because of the manner of their elimination

Best Referee – Very tempted to say NONE but I’m surprising myself by going for Luis Medina Cantalejo from Spain despite the two highly debatable decisions in the Australia v Italy game. He was possibly the best of a bad lot

Worst Referee – Without doubt England’s Graham Poll for his nightmare in the Australia vs Croatia game

Worst Non Decision – Poll again for the blatantly clear rugby tackle on Mark Viduka in the same game

Worst Decision – Too many to mention

Best Fans – Definately Australia, both the ones in Germany and the ones who went out in the middle of winter nights to support their team with so much passion

As an Australian I have done my utmost not to let any bias cloud my judgements and remain as objective as I possibly could

Finally the debate over the use of video referees must make FIFA come to their senses. Even if a 3 referee panel is only used to judge a questionable dive it will be a start and very simple to implement. The panel of 3 will ensure that a decision is not left up to the opinion of just one person.

The referee stops the game if in his opinion an illegal tackle has taken place, the majority decision of the 3 man panel is relayed to him after studying the video from a couple of different angles then either proceeds with the penalty kick or award the defending team with a free kick together with a red card to the offending actor.

The same process can be used for diving outside the penalty area but with the issue of a yellow instead of a red card.

About the ipothesis to transform the world cup in a sort of league… bah I don’t think it will never be possible!
A professional player has only a month free from his club in a year, this means that in that year must start and end all the competition: 9 jun, 9 jul that’s it!
You can measure the skill of a team also if they find the form for the most important part of
the tournement: play so and so in the first phase and grow ’till the final, the history of world cup is full of teams the scored lot of goals in the start to be eliminated from the team that otherwise qualified itself at the last minute.
It’s football
I love it!!!!

i dont think you can say the compeittion would drag on too longunder the format i suggested. i mean a season goes from august till may. so why would 8 minor round games and then the round of 16 fade out. if anything i think it would make more money, give teams the opportunity to build up and play all their squad and play a settled side come finals. and the added bonus of having a round of 16 of teams that should be there. in my system i would dare say croatia, south korea and czech would make the top 16 teams in the cup replacing, ukraine, switzerland, and ghana who barely gave a yelp in the round of 16 and of that the ukraine switzerland game if they both could lose they both would have. that too me highlights the glaring problem of the world cup in its current form.

to me i dont think anyone should bother watching the next one. i beleive the world cup will hit new lows next time and i beleive more substandard teams will be make it through to the next round because they will bully the better teams and try and con the ref at every opportunity and there will be weaker groups which will allow them to go through.
and i beleive there will be less goals again. due to the pressure on coaches.
there has to be an incentive to attack and get goals.

This is partly due to the knock-out nature of the competition, where the losing team has no second chance. It is also because of the evenness between the competing teams (naturally as only the best survive after the first round).

Another factor that contributes to this problem is that there is a gradual disappearance of teams with flair at recent world cups, such as the Brazil of 1982 or Argentina of 1986 etc.

Your suggestion of a change of format is impractical for the reason that the world cup as a spectacle would drag on for much longer than four weeks. Interest is best sustained in a short time frame like in the current format.

But Fifa certainly can improve the standard of refereeing and disciplinary actions by introducing the use of videos both during and after the game to stamp out the curse that is diving. Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo in particular are the perfect examples.