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Here’s an interesting post from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “FIFA’s World Cup 2010 Technical Report is 289 Pages of Fluff” . Follow this link:
FIFA’s World Cup 2010 Technical Report is 289 Pages of Fluff

FIFA has released its World Cup 2010 Technical Report in the form of a 9.28 megabyte pdf document. Which might sound impressive, but only if you haven’t read it. Because this thing is 289 pages of fluff, in four different languages.

The document basically contains a lot of pictures, a lot of over-simplifications, and a lot of glossing over hard truths. In the “Story of the Tournament” section for example, Frank Lampard’s inexplicably unawarded goal for England vs Germany in the Second Round is related thusly: “They thought they had equalised but the goal was not given.” I know small children who could give a more detailed retelling of that event. No wonder FIFA have snuck this out the day before Euro qualifying begins, when we’re all focused on the next tournament and no longer care as much about the last one.

At least FIFA’s famed Technical Study Group were able to offer some valuable insights in the “Technical and Tactical Analysis” section though, right? Wrong. Instead we get gems like “The most successful teams also boasted fast, tricky attackers who were dangerous in front of goal.” Imagine that.

But by far the most worrying thing in the document is FIFA’s penchant for self-glorification. The first thing pointed out in the “Trends” chapter is:

Thanks to FIFA’s development programmes, which were launched by then FIFA Technical Director Joseph S. Blatter in 1975 before being expanded upon by the confederations and associations, there are no longer any “small” or “weak” national teams.

The adidas Jabulani matchball is not mentioned, despite being an obvious contributory factor to several events, including about half of Diego Forlan’s goals, and the “Refereeing Report” basically praises the physical conditioning and training that FIFA gave the referees. It does contain one paragraph acknowledging that refereeing errors were made, but seemingly only so FIFA can make excuses and reassure us that solutions are being worked on:

It is clear that errors – some of them serious – did occur in the hundreds of often very difficult decisions taken over the 64 matches. These errors are neither covered up nor justified but are meticulously analysed to learn from them and improve future training plans. The challenge is to work towards improvements.

The most disappointing this is that this report is basically a sales brochure. As if FIFA are trying to sell us a timeshare in Brazil for 2014. FIFA needs to realize that it’s OK. That we don’t need any convincing. That despite their multiple errors we still want them to arrange future World Cups, if only because no one else is capable of doing so.

Follow this link:
FIFA’s World Cup 2010 Technical Report is 289 Pages of Fluff

Here’s a good post from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “FIFA’s World Cup All-Star Team” . Read the original here:
FIFA’s World Cup All-Star Team

There are plenty of World Cup best XIs floating around. Mr. David Beckham did one just before the final, and we did two ourselves, split between semi-finalists and non-semi-finalists.

There’s only one XI that goes in the history books though, and that’s the FIFA one. The FIFA World Cup All-Star Team was decided by the votes of FIFA.com Club members (that’s folks who’ve signed up at the FIFA website) and the results were announced today. So, as voted for by fans, the World Cup All-Star Team is as follows:

Goalkeeper: Iker Casillas (Spain)
Defenders: Philip Lahm (Germany), Carles Puyol (Spain), Maicon (Brazil), Sergio Ramos (Spain)
Midfielders: Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Xavi (Spain)
Forwards: Diego Forlan (Uruguay), David Villa (Spain)

That’s six members of the Spain team, and only one player – Brazil’s Maicon – who didn’t make the semi-finals. The teams also features three right backs and no left back.

Obviously it’s not worth being too pedantic about an All-Star team, but I think this shows that maybe an XI can’t really be selected via a fan vote. At least not unless there’s a separate vote for specific positions, like left back, that would otherwise be overlooked. Because now when future generations look back at World Cup 2010, they could easily assumethere were no decent left backs present, which is a shame for players like Uruguay’s Jorge Fucile and Portugal’s Fábio Coentrão. I think I’d much rather see the Best XI as selected by FIFA’s famed Technical Study Group.

Read the original here:
FIFA’s World Cup All-Star Team

Here’s an interesting article from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “World Cup 2010 Awards (official FIFA ones, not ours)” .

With all the World Cup action over and all the votes tallied, the World Cup awards can now be handed out. And there’s a lot of gold to go around. There’s the Golden Ball for best player (plus silver and bronze for runners up), the Golden Boot for top scorer, the Golden Glove (just one, this ‘aint boxing) for best goalkeeper and the not so golden but still prestigious Best Young Player award (the Golden iPod?)

Read on for an overview of who won what:

Golden Ball for best player: Diego Forlan (Uruguay)
FIFA drew up the shortlist of 10, and the accredited media (so not World Cup Blog) voted the Uruguayan striker (and, based on this World Cup, creator) as the best player of the tournament. No arguments here.
Silver Ball: Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)
Bronze Ball: David Villa (Spain)

Golden Boot for top scorer: Thomas Mueller (Germany)
There was actually a four way tie at the top of the goalscoring chart with Mueller, David Villa, Wesley Sneijder and Diego Forlan all scoring five goals each. Tie-breaker was assists, which put Mueller on top with three.
Silver Shoe: David Villa (Spain)
Bronze Show: Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)
Villa and Sneijder had one assist each, and so seems from the FIFA top scorer page (and I’m just guessing here) that Villa finishes above Sneijder based on fewer minutes plated (635 to Sneijder’s 652). No top scorer boots for Forlan, as he played 654 minutes, but luckily he’s got that Golden Ball to console him.

Best Young Player: Thomas Mueller (Germany)
Quite a successful awards haul for Mueller. After being named to a shortlist of three along with Mexico’s Gio dos Santos and Ghana’s Andre Ayew, teh 20 year old Mueller was named as Best Young Player by FIFA’s Technical Study Group. I’m assuming that Mueller being tournament top scorer made this an easy choice.

Golden Glove for best goalkeeper: Iker Casillas (Spain)
It’s not clear who decides this award, so I’m going to assume it’s the FIFA Technical Study Group again. Despite conceding to Switzerland in Spain’s opening game (which they lost 1-0), Casillas has been cool as a (non global warming threatened) glacier at World Cup 2010. I imagine competition for this award was tight, with guys like Switzerland’s Diego Benaglio, Portugal’s Eduardo, Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera and even Netherlands’ Maarten Stekelenburg all impressing (others too, but running out of space here). Personally I think Casillas deserves this purely for being brave enough to knock Carles Puyol down to get to a cross, but just two goals conceded in seven games plus captaining a World Cup winning team (and making important saves in the final) makes Casillas more than worthy.

FIFA Fair Play Award: Spain
I forgot they even did this. But apparently Spain’s eight yellow cards in seven games (five(!) of which came in the final) means the team averaged just 1.14 yellows per game, and zero reds.

(Spain also wins a thing called the World Cup trophy, for beating all the other teams) (except Switzerland)

Read more from the original source:
World Cup 2010 Awards (official FIFA ones, not ours)

Here’s a new article from FIFA.com – 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ – News

Former Sudanese international and member of the FIFA Technical Study, Abdel Moneim ‘Shatta’ Hussein, offers words of support for Algeria following their opening match.

Read more:
Hang in there Desert Warriors!