World Cup 2010: A review of the tournament
With the FIFA World Cup 2010 all set to wrap up tonight with what is set to be a thrilling final between the Netherlands and Spain, it is worth going back and seeing exactly what the tournament brought us. There were a lot of goals scored, some unbelievable matches, refereeing blunders and other controversies that kept all of us football fans glued to our seats. Let's take a look back at this great tournament.
Even before the tournament started there was excitement and jubilation at the fact that for the first time in football history the tournament was being held on the continent of Africa. Once the tournament got under way, South Africa lived up to its reputation as a great country for football. Many exciting matches took place during the first round and many new and exciting teams were unearthed in the process.
The first round of the tournament saw some heavy duty casualties as well. France and Italy were both knocked out of the tournament after giving horrendous performances. The French team had internal problems with their coach and some players were disciplined and one was even sent home. Then the world champions Italy were knocked out in spectacular fashion by Slovakia 3-2.
Major upsets were the order of the day during this World Cup. The next big team to be thrown out of the tournament was Brazil who was beaten by a very much in form Dutch team. The Brazilians had been playing with a new style; a style that lacked flair and they were punished for it. Argentina, who was looking extremely strong throughout the tournament, was knocked out by an equally strong German side. The Argentinean coach's lack of experience was evident in their 4-0 defeat against a young and blisteringly fast paced German team. One of the greatest football matches in a long time was also witnessed, when Ghana took on Uruguay. It was a thrilling nail biting match that had everything from goals to handballs to penalties.
This World Cup also featured some serious controversies when it came to refereeing. The two biggest problems that occurred this time were first in the England-Germany match and the other happened in the Argentina-Mexico match. The England side saw a clear goal get disallowed due to referee error and the Argentinean side saw a goal scored against the Mexicans when Carlos Tevez was clearly offside. The US side also saw a clear goal get disallowed for unknown reasons by the referee. These errors were so significant that they caused FIFA to make a u-turn in regards to their policy on goal line technology. So much has been written about this subject that we will have to wait and see what decision is taken in regards to this issue.
The other big controversy of the tournament was with the Jabulani ball. This newly designed and highly technical ball designed by Adidas had a lot of people against it. For some odd reason the swing and curve of the ball was a bit weird and many strikers of the ball had problems keeping the ball down and on target. Goalkeepers, before the tournament started, were very worried about the ball but they did not have to be that concerned because of the fact that goal scorers just could not find the target on many occasions. Even though the ball was touted as being the best ball ever before the start of the competition by the manufacturer and FIFA, it caused a lot of problems and was not the most popular ball that was used.
In the tournament this year, 144 goals have been scored in 63 games. Germany is top of the league with their tally of goals and a few players are going for the elusive golden boot award this year. The top three players in contention at the moment are Thomas Muller of Germany who has 6 goals, David Villa of Spain with also 6 goals and Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands again with 6 goals. So at the moment the two guys who look like they will probably have a strong fight for the award will be David Villa and Wesley Sneijder. Let's see what happens tonight and who comes away with the award.
This year's World Cup has been a very entertaining and exciting one. Leaving all the controversies aside, we have seen some very interesting and unbelievable matches. Hopefully 2014 will be just as exciting as 2010. With this year's tournament almost over, we will all have to wait for another four years to relive the glory of the greatest tournament on the planet: FIFA World Cup.
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