World Cup Corner

The final match of this years FIFA World Cup in Germany was the most watched sports event in 2006, drawing more than twice as many viewers as any other program.

An average of 260 million people watched Italy claim its fourth title after winning 5-3 in a penalty shootout against France and more than 600 million viewers watched some part of the Berlin match. The whole event had a cumulative 5.9 billion audience in 54 countries, of which 41 percent were women.

2006 was also a very successful year for World Cup Corner. With numbers still increasing there were more than 300.000 unique visitors stopping by and more than 1.2 million pageviews in 2006.

Let’s call it a year with the top 10 most viewed posts in the World Cup Year 2006:

1. All Eyes on Heidi Klum
2. The World Cup’s Richest Players
3. World Cup Playboys
4. Babes, Wives and Girlfriends
5. Joga Bonito
6. Zidane About The Headbutt Incident
7. International Soccer - The Grandaddy of All Games
8. Italy on Top of the World
9. The Grand Finale: Italy - France
10. Matches and Results

Merry and happy everything. See you in 2007!

I know there are only a few days to Christmas but it’s still not to late to find that perfect gift for a soccer fan. Here is my short list of recommendations you could consider buying:

DVD

• All the Goals of FIFA World Cup 2006
• The Best of FIFA Fever: Greatest Moments in FIFA World Cup History
• Footballers’ Wives

Books

• 90 Minutes: The Greatest Moments from the World Cup
• Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradona, Soccer’s Fallen Star
• Fashion of Football, The: From Best to Beckham, From Mod to Label Slave

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Fabio Cannavaro and Marta were named FIFA World Player and FIFA Women’s World Player for the year 2006, following a poll of national coaches and captains.

Canavaro collected 498 points in the vote, in which 165 national coaches and 165 national team captains took part. France’s Zinedine Zidane (454), FIFA Player of the Year in 1998, 2000 and 2003, was second. Last year’s winner Ronaldinho (380), who has already triumphed twice, came in third.

Among the women, 20-year-old Marta, with 475 points, recorded a win over, Kristine Lilly (388) from the USA and Renate Lingor (305) from Germany.

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For the fifth time, Brazil have been crowned FIFA Team of the Year, leaving this year world champions Italy at the second place.

After the total of 788 international matches played this year, the top 10 teams on FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking are:

1. Brazil 1588
2. Italy 1560
3. Argentina 1551
4. France 1523
5. England 1359
6. Germany 1350
7. Netherlands 1305
8. Portugal 1258
9. Nigeria 1244
10. Czech Republic 1190

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Did Brazilian and FC Barcelona star Ronaldinho already won the 2006 FIFA World Player of the Year Award? If we are going to believe rumors and speculations around Internet, he is the winner.

For those of us, who don’t believe the rumors around Internet, there are only a few days left to the final announcement and for the shorter short list to reduce to only one left.

I know it’s an old picture, but I still like to look at this team going out on the field.

Is there a man out there who wouldn’t like to play against the sexiest team ever?

MasterCard, which has sponsored the World Cup since 1990, has won a US lawsuit against the world football governing body. FIFA wanted to end its sponsorship of the World Cup in favour of MasterCard’s rival Visa.

The judge ordered FIFA to drop its planned eight-year deal with Visa, which was set to begin in January 2007, and instead return to MasterCard for the 2007 to 2014 period.