Top ten 2010 FIFA World Cup wonders
FIFA world cup finals is on edge. This time there are many wonders. I have posted top 10 among these. Hope you will like this.
Ten: USA. Sublime organisational skills and breathtaking never-say-die spirit.
A goal down, they come back. Two goals down, they come back. They just keep going.
Clint Dempsey is dirt-poor Texan and learned his soccer in a trailer-park playing with Mexican and Honduran kids. When he gets to the World Cup, he ain’t complaining (unlike the English whiners), and he intends to stay there.
Nine: Maicon’s stunning narrow-angle goal for Brazil against North Korea. Who says there’s a problem with this Jabulani ball? All you need is skill, obviously.
Eight: Kaka. Wrongly red-carded for an alleged assault on the pathetic Kader Keita, of Cote d’Ivoire. Keita got a casual brush-off from Kaka and fell to the ground clutching his face. Kaka walked away, perplexed but resigned to the absurdity of others. Couldn’t be bothered to protest. More élan than all of France combined.
Seven: John Terry. The farce of Terry’s press conference, suggesting he was some sort of leader of the England’s players, was Python-esque. Here was a guy, earlier stripped of the captaincy, making a bizarre claim for representing player-integrity.
An ego the size of the African continent and the little talent to help defeat Slovenia (population: 2 million) by a single goal.
Six: France. Came to the World Cup on the ugly odour of bad karma. Imploded. Mediocrities playing for a weird-type guy, one Raymond Domenech. Good riddance.
Five: Mesut Ozil. Where did this guy come from? Werder Bremen, actually. Germany’s outstanding player so far, Ozil is on the cusp of superstardom. This kid is the business – fast, tricky, always in search of a goal, and handsome. For once the Fifa website was not exaggerating when it declared “The sigh of relief in German football was almost audible when Mesut Ozil made the step up to international class...”
Four: New Zealand. Ragtag, hopelessly outclassed – on paper – and never, ever stopping, they are not sublimely gifted players but supremely disciplined and unawed. Watching these guys hold Italy to a 1-1 draw on a Sunday afternoon was way better than any Hollywood movie about underdog triumph. Because it was real – every kick, tackle and lung-bursting run. Hearts of oak, these guys.
Three: Diego Maradona. He appears to have bought one suit – an expensive, though ill-fitting double-breasted number – for the World Cup, and he’s sticking with it. He’s cracked in the head but, by heavens, he enjoys the game and adores his players. He feels every foul, every missed shot, and every small mistake. He is Latin passion and South American soccer superiority personified. And he is forgiven everything.
Two: Diego Forlan. A lithe blond god, he reminds of us of the sweetness of the poached goal, the long-distance strike hitting the net.
Mocked after a so-so term in England with Manchester United, Forlan has emerged in Spain, and in South Africa, as a gloriously gifted striker. No one thought Uruguay go be this entrancing and deadly. Forlan could take them to the quarter-finals and beyond.
One: South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala’s opening goal against Mexico. It was magic.
After a tense, nervous first half, the host country burst into action and that goal, the first of this World Cup, was as sweet as sugar. A surging run, a beautifully weighted pass and the ball hitting the back of the net. I watched the opening ceremonies and opening game with bestselling South African writer Deon Meyer. He was quietly emotional for the longest time, explaining how much the World Cup meant to his country, how it had in an authentic way, brought a divided nation together. He was choked up when the TV showed Bishop Desmond Tutu dancing in the stands. Then he leapt to his feet, shouting, “Yes!” when the goal came. And it felt like the whole world, not just South Africa, was cheering. (Agencies).
Is/will there any ohter shold be in this list?
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