World Cup Corner

Brazil have historically been considered the best footballing nation in the world, with a seemingly endless supply of world class players every generation, they have the mindset, almost divine right to the World Cup. Every tournament has the Brazillians pretty much the favorites. This speaks for itself.

But lately, there seems to be something about the way the current Brazillians play. It has been in effect since the 2006 World Cup. Just play the top stars (Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo) and load the team with the regular supporting cast and hope for the best. While individually still a joy to watch, there is another team that has overtaken the Brazillians by playing swashbuckling, passing and creative TEAM football.
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In 2006, the World Cup Soccer competition was held in Germany. There were 32 qualified teams, which represented six continents along with six past winners.
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Didier Drogba of Chelsea and Ivory coast has been named the 2006 African Footballer of the Year on Thursday, beating out Samuel Eto’o of Barcelona, who would have won his 4th consecutive award.

Drogba, 28, is a first time winner and was captain of Ivory Coast when they reached the African Nations Cup final but lost out on penalties to Egypt. The Ivorians also participated in the 2006 World Cup tournament, where they made a good showing of themselves.

Full List of African Nations Awards:
African Footballer of the Year: Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast)
Team of the Year: Ghana
Club of the Year: Al Ahli (Egypt)
Coach of the Year: Manuel Jose (Al Ahli, Egypt)
Young African Player of the Year: Taye Taiwo (Olympique Marseille and Nigeria)
African club competition Player of the Year: Mohamed Aboutrika (Al Ahli, Egypt)
Women’s Footballer of the Year: Cynthia Uwak (Nigeria).

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!

Germany’s World Cup 2006 organizing committee announced that the World Cup 2006 tournament brought in a net profit of 56.5 million euros which will go to the DFB and DFL.

The committee had total earnings of 140 million euros from the tournament but turned over 40 million euros directly to world governing body FIFA and another 44 million euros for taxes.

Update: The Golden Ball was sold for $2.4 million to 21-year-old member of the Qatar royal family.

On November 4, one of the 20 balls made for the the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin, between Italy and France, will be auctioned at the charity gala dinner in The Ritz Carlton in Qatar. The Golden Ball, which will be auctioned, was signed by the entire Italian team.

Absentee bidders from around the world will be able to join in the bidding for Golden Ball. Organisers expect the auction to surpass the $10 million raised last year.

Did you know you can watch UEFA Champions League online via ESPN? For $9.95 per game ESPN will stream every single game in this year’s Champions League on the Internet.

The downside is that the online streams are only available to users in the United States and Latin America.

On Wednesday comes the FIFA World Cup final rematch between France and Italy. The French will clearly have a score to settle at the Stade de France, scene of their own World Cup triumph in 1998, when they face Italy’s world champions just two months after their disappointing contest in Berlin.

France will go into the game after a convincing 3-0 victory in Georgia on Saturday when Italy, by contrast, need to pick themselves up after a surprise 1-1 draw with Lithuania in Naples.

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German referee Markus Merk has criticised his treatment by FIFA during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He said he and his team felt they were treated “without respect” while he was also unhappy with the way the referees were told to apply the game’s laws. Although his chances of being used again, after the group matches, were very low he and his team had to remain available at the referee’s headquarters at Neu Isenburg near Frankfurt.

For weeks we took part in voluntary training every morning, mostly as the only team. We felt somehow we were being treated without respect. I can understand the displeasure about the application of the rules in the group stage. I myself did not feel happy on the pitch. European referees had a hard time from the beginning.

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The Zidane’s head-butt story goes on while some people are trying to commercialise the moment marking Zidane’s inglorious exit from international soccer.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the song “Coup de Boule” (French for “head-butt”), had hit number one on France’s singles chart.

The most bizare thing I heard comes from a Chinese man who is inviting bids for the rights to an image of France captain Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt during soccer World Cup final. Zhao Xiaokai, general manager of a sport-related company, paid $250 to register the trademark - a silhouette of Zidane head-butting Italy defender Marco Materazzi’s chest - for shoes, hats and beer products.

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