FOOTBALL IS COMING HOME » David Villa

World Cup All-Stars 2.0

Peter Alegi — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:58:38 +0000

Yesterday’s final ushered me into an emotional, existential Kalahari. Unable to resume life as usual here in South Africa, whatever that means, my therapy consists in part of playing everyone’s favorite fun game: World Cup All-Stars, version 2.0 (click here for 1.0).

Initially, the simple choice was to pick the entire Spain squad with just two changes: Fucile for Capdevila and Forlan for Torres/Pedro. But that wouldn’t be much fun. So here are my picks:

Neuer
Fucile, Juan, Pique, Sergio Ramos
Mueller, Schweinsteiger, Xavi, Sneijder
Villa, Forlan

Best Players: Forlan and Sergio Ramos (because defenders are people too)

Goal of the Tournament: Van Bronckhorst in Netherlands v Uruguay (quality and importance)

Best Match of the Tournament: USA-Slovenia 2-2 (which should have gone down as one of the greatest comeback victories in World Cup history, right Mr. Coulibaly?)

Best Referee: Viktor Kassai of Hungary (This cool cat ref’d one of the cleanest World Cup semifinals ever: Spain-Germany)

Best Moments: Tshabalala’s goal for Bafana in the opener vs Mexico (when, for a few minutes, it seemed another World Cup was possible) and Buffon signing my daughters’ jersey and flag before Slovakia-Italy.

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World Cup All-Stars 1.0

Peter Alegi — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:50:39 +0000

With two days off before the quarterfinals, it’s an opportune time to take stock of the top performers of South Africa 2010 so far. The team lines up in the widely used 4-3-2-1 ‘Christmas tree’ formation with no more than two players from one nation. Here are my picks:

Julio Cesar
Salcido, Mertesacker, Pique, Maicon
Kuyt, Mascherano, Oezil
Villa, Messi
Suarez

Honorable mention: Sneijder, Forlan, and Gyan

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‘The 100 Best Players in the World’

Sean Jacobs — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:17:32 +0000

British football magazine FourFourTwo, just published (in the November issue) the list of the “100 Best Players in the World.” The choices are based on the input of the magazine’s journalists. Of course it will lead to all kinds of debate as “lists” are always subjective and don’t mean anything beyond getting fans talking. Generally I agree with the list. If you haven’t seen the list, here’s the top ten (I’ve listed them by country, since that’s an affiliation that does not change):

(1) Lionel Messi (Argentina)

(2) Ronaldo (Portugal)

(3) Xavi and Iniesta (Spain)

(5) David Villa (Spain)

(6) Fernando Torres (Spain)

(7) Steven Gerrard (England)

(8) Kaka (Brazil)

(9) Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon)

(10) Wayne Rooney (England)

Since I am an Afrophile when it comes to football, I was a bit surprised by only Eto’o’s inclusion in the top ten. So who were the other Africans who made into the top 100? Not much. Didier Drogba of Cote d’Ivoire came in at number 14, Michael Essien (Ghana, 18), Yaya Toure (of Barcelona and Cote d’Ivoire, 39), Freddie Kanoute (Mali, 43) and Maroume Chamakh (Morocco) at 81.

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