FIFA World Cup 2010: Winners
The nineteenth edition of the World Cup has finally come to a close, here’s taking a look back at the winners of the tournament.
After Netherlands was defeated by Spain in the final game of the World Cup, it meant that only one team of the thirty two participating teams went home without losing a single game. That team was New Zealand. The Kiwis participated in the tournament as one of the lowest ranked teams, but managed to emerge out of their group without suffering a single defeat.
Prior to the 2010 World Cup the idea of using Goal line technology was considered to be absurd. But after the mother of all errors in the Germany vs England quarter final, Blatter was forced to reconsider his decision. This has technically been a win for Goal Line Technology which could be introduced in time for the Euro 2012.
Despite the fact that referees were highly criticized throughout the tournament, based on the few bad decisions that they made, they had generally been outstanding throughout. The games were made to flow, the referees didn’t get distracted by any simulation or dive and managed to get most of the big decisions right. While a number of big names failed to deliver at the tournament, the referees didn’t.
Diego Forlan, has officially been named player of the tournament. He followed up a wonderful season with his club by helping his national team finish fourth in the World Cup. The striker was hands down the driving force behind the Uruguayan squad. Every time Uruguay needed some magic, it was Forlan who produced it. Even in the dying seconds of the third place playoff game when the rest of the team gave up, Forlan set up a beautiful strike which came off the post. Had that gone in, Forlan would have taken home the Golden boot along with the Golden ball.
The 2010 World Cup saw the rise of the youth from almost every country. Germany featured most of their under 21, and the World Cup winning squad Spain also had one of the youngest squads in the tournament. Thomas Muller who is only twenty one years old is taking home the golden boot award. This just proves that even with very little experience, the right mixture of talent and determination can take you far.
Ultimately the biggest winners of the tournament are none other than the Spanish squad. The Spanish lost their opening game against the Swiss which saw most people claim them to be over hyped. But Spain quickly recovered after that and started winning every game. Spain didn’t score the millions of goals that they were expected to score but in fact, did the exact opposite. Spain went on to win most of their matches by a score line of one goal to nil. This saw them set a new record of being the lowest scoring World Cup winners in the history of the tournament. It is impossible to say that Spain didn’t deserve to win, they always played positive football and didn’t fail to entertain at any moment.
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