The likes of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Fernando Torres and Lionel Messi failed to deliver on the biggest stage of all, though it’s worth noting the close attention Messi received that stopped him and that Torres was not match fit.  France, Italy and England above all other nations had a shocking World Cup and should all learn from Germany who gambled with a more youthful team.

The final was not a goal fest but I personally really enjoyed it.  Yes 4-3 would have been more exciting but apart from Holland’s bully-boy tactics, the match was brimming with attacking world class talent. Snyder, Robben and Van Persie for the Netherlands and Iniesta, Xavi and Villa for Spain.  The match was like a game of chess, each team attempting to outwit the opponent and building up play rather than toe-punting the ball around like headless English chickens.

As with each major football tournament where some players fail to deliver, a star or two are born.  Mezut Ouzil who apparently was courted by Manchester United before he signed to German club Werder Bremen in 2008 was as good as anyone in the 2010 World Cup and was unheard of outside Germany before the tournament began.  They will be lucky to hold on to him and resist the big money offers.  By contrast, David Villa had been touted as a world class striker for the past few seasons but he chose the World Cup stage to deliver.  No doubt Barcelona was very pleased to complete the signing before he scored five goals to share the Golden Boot.

I was surprised to see both Argentina and Brazil lose to Germany and Holland respectively at the quarter-final stage and am sure both countries will do better and be led by new managers at the next World Cup which is to be held in Brazil.

So by way of a 2010 South Africa World Cup roundup, here are a few awards:

My favourite goal of the World Cup was Giovanni Van Bronckhorst long range thunderbolt for Holland against Uruguay.

Best players of the tournament: David Villa, Diego Forlan, Wes Snyder, Mezut Ouzil & Andres Iniesta

Most surprising team performance: Ghana & Germany

Most underused commentary: “that was a great touch by Wayne Rooney”

Best team: Spain

And finally, here’s my 2010 World Cup XI

Goalkeeper: Castillas (Spain)

Defenders: Lahm (Germany), Lucio (Brazil), Puyol (Spain), Van Bronckhorst (Holland)

Midfield: Van Bommel (Holland), Ouzil (Germany), Iniesta (Spain), Snyder (Holland)

Forwards: Villa (Spain), Suarez (Uruguay), Robben (Holland)

A:3K is a unique and ultimate football challenge, bringing together six of the most exciting players currently playing in England and Spain and putting them through a series of challenges to determine the winner.

The players who will battle it out for the crown are Manchester United and England talisman Wayne Rooney, Real Madrid and Portugal winger Cristiano Ronaldo, Chelsea and Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba, Arsenal and Spain star Cesc Fabregas, Liverpool and England midfielder Steven Gerrard and Barcelona and Spain hitman David Villa.

The event takes place at London’s prestigious O2 Arena on July 17th allowing fans to witness the breathtaking skills of their favourite players in the comfort of a theatre.

In fact a theatre is a fitting venue for this gladiatorial sports exhibition, designed to test the fitness levels as well as the skills of the players involved.

Each of the footballers will be put through five challenges;

Power: designed to test which of the contestants can strike the ball hardest

Curve: Will test the players accuracy when shooting on goal

Precision: Another accuracy test, this one relating to crossing of the ball from distance

Control: Will see how well the players contend with receiving a pass and using the ball effectively

Attack: Which will see the six contestants take each other on in an everyman for himself challenge

There will be no points awarded for diving skills in this tournament!

The player winning most points during the five challenges, will be crowned the A:3K King!

If you fancy some football with a difference and seeing some of the hottest headed players in a more relaxed atmosphere, A:3K tickets are now available for this unique event.

A:3K tickets are offered by viagogo where every A:3K transaction is 100% guaranteed to be safe and secure. As well as making it easy and simple to buy A:3K tickets or sell A:3K tickets, viagogo ensure their safe and prompt delivery with online tracking.

Florentino Perez and Jorge Valdano should surely know that this man will not lie down and be told who, or indeed how to play. He is his own man, much to the chagrin of Roman Abramovic, whose own ego couldn’t allow Mourinho to dictate matters at the club Roman so lovingly bought with his ‘dirty money’.

Moratti in a sense was the perfect owner for Mourinho, a powerful, yet understanding owner who knew when to open his wallet to keep Jose happy, and knew not to tamper in personnel issues on the pitch; are you listening Berlusconi, concentrate on embarrassing your people and leave Milan alone.

Alas the Italian press, combined with Mourinho’s satisfaction at having done all he can do at Inter Milan, means Mourinho will go from a situation where the club, owner, players and supporters loved him; to a situation where only the supporters and some players will love him.

As far as Perez sitting back while Jose does his thing, don’t think for one second Marca won’t get on his back and wedge a rod between manager and board. This is the same paper who forced the removal of Manuel Pellegrini, even though Real Madrid achieved a record number of goals and points this season.

Only Barcelona’s near perfect performances kept them from winning La Liga. They had decided long ago that Pellegrini should go, and they didn’t want to lose face by changing their minds. Marca are so narrow minded, that even if Real had brought home the league; they would have still called for his head, and Perez is too weak not to listen to the press.

But it gets worse, players like Cristiano Ronaldo don’t do defensive football, and Mourinho had Samuel Eto’o tracking back all the way through the Champions League final; and all season for that matter. Here is a proven goal scorer who has been relegated to a defensive wide forward playing under Mourinho. Sure he did it, but can you see Ronaldo and Kaka chasing down opposition full backs in their own half?  Come to that, as football fans, do we want them to?

These are gifted attacking players who provide magic and get you goals, but not for Mourinho.

Things are about to get very tense in the Madrid, and given that I don’t see Portugal going far in the World Cup this summer, there is going to be one unhappy Real Madrid number 9 come the start of the season, and if Mourinho doesn’t manage things just right, one of them will have to go; and given Real Madrid’s record with managers, Jose Mourinho might find himself back in the English Premiership sooner, rather than later.

castrol rankings

Designed to add substance to arguments across the UK over who is the best footballer in Europe, the Castrol Rankings use objective analysis and 100% accurate data to measure every pass, every tackle and every single move of over 2000 players and games every year, which means that the Castrol Ranking are based on actual performance.

Thierry Henry’s efforts in front of goal are what have made him the stand-out player of the last year. The French international scored five goals and provided three assists during Barca’s successful Champions League campaign and has contributed a further 18 goals and eight assists in La Liga during the 12-month period all of which have helped him become the world’s best performing player.

The key to Henry’s success has been the accuracy of his shooting with the forward finding the target with an impressive 70% of his shots compared to an average of 42% across the five main European leagues.

Surprisingly, the Premier League contributes only five players to the Castrol Rankings Top 20. However, further analysis shows that the English league has more players (33) in the top 100 than any of the five major leagues.

The Top 20 Players in the Castrol Rankings September 2009:

Watch Cristiano Ronaldo at the Castrol Rankings Top 20 Player Launch:

But why is it that when Man City offered £100 million for Kaka, the majority of English football pundits, commentators and overpaid ex-footballers shook their heads and frowned at the idea that Manchester City were prepared to pay such a large amount of money for any one player.  But £80 million for Cristiano Ronaldo between Real Madrid and Manchester United has not received the same level of criticism?

I believe there are equal measures of hypocracy and snobbery.  It’s okay for Real Madrid and Manchester United  because they are two of the biggest clubs in the world.  As Alex Ferguson likes to tell the media when playing mind games against Chelsea, ‘Manchester United has history!’

And like when Roman Abramovich made Chelsea the richest club in the world with his own money, the Manchester City owner and member of the Arab Abu Dhabi royal family, 38 year-old Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has unfairly been discrimated against as the richest clubs in the world have always paid large sums of money to prize the best players away from other teams.  It’s just not fair that someone can bully Ferguson and Manchester United around, is it?

There is an obvious elitist factor at play. Furthermore, surely it’s more acceptable for Manchester City and Chelsea to pay large sums of money for top players in this current climate than it is the likes of Manchester United.  Afterall, the Glazer Family bought Man United with borrowed money and have saddled that great club with allegedly £511 million of debt.  The sale of Ronaldo will not even pay 50% of this year’s interest repayment on Manchester United’s loans which allegedly stands at £45.5 million.

Kaka is one of the best players in the world.  But £56 million paid to AC Milan for the young Brazilian midfield playmaker, compared to £80 million for Ronaldo,  is a bargain.  Bayern Munich’s Frank Ribery and Liverpool’s Xavi Alonso were also on Florentino Perez’s wishlist at a recent press conference.  Those players have also been courted by Chelsea and Arsenal, respectively.

This summer’s transfer market has just got exciting.  Real Madrid have the money and the history to buy more top players, while Manchester City are going to find it more difficult to persuade the best players in the world to join them unless they are pushing 30 and are content with a massive weekly pay check and no European medals next season.

Manchester United will I assume look to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, maybe with someone like Frank Ribery; and if Carlos Tevez leaves Old Trafford they will most definitely need another striker to play alongside Wayne Rooney.  How about Stewart Downing and Jermain Defoe?

Arsenal need to strengthen their squad if they are prepared to put up a reasonable fight to stay in the ‘big four’ and Chelsea will have offered Carlo Ancelotti a reasonable amount of money to rebuild an aging team, if they are to mount a serious challenge for the Premiership or the Champions League.

Exciting times ahead this summer.

Perez arrived with his first aquisition, fans favourite Zinedine Zidane as an advisor and immediately set about installing a new coach to replace the departing Juande Ramos at the club. Villareal coach Manuel Pelligrini who is the longest serving coach in Spain’s top flight having spent the previous five seasons with the ‘Yellow Submarines’ has been announced as Ramos’s replacement.

The 55 year old Chilean will cost Real Madrid around 4million euros in compensation to Villareal.

Madrid have been a poor second best to Barcelona this season, the Catalan giants winning trophies on three fronts, while last seasons La Liga champions have struggled to find their game.  Perez is anxious to return Real Madrid to their previous glory and has promised fans that he will move heaven and earth to bring the worlds best players to the Bernabeu once again.

On Spanish TV last night, Perez spoke about his love of Kaka, Xabi Alonso, Frank Ribery and of course Cristiano Ronaldo, but was also realistic enough to suggest that Madrid would need to sell up to ten of their squad to enable them to bring in six new players.

Surprisingly the new Real Madrid President added that despite his love of Ronaldo who would be a ‘model signing’, he is unaware of any contractual agreement having been made by the player and former president of the club.

In the first 10 minutes, Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United had three efforts on goal, as they pinned a startled Barcelona back into their own half.  With three of their four first team defenders missing through injury or suspension and Thierry Henry and Andres Iniesta passing late fitness test, like many people I spoke to, I expected Man Utd to beat Barcelona.

But after soaking up the pressure for 10 minutes Barcelona swept forward in a free flowing counter attack that resulted in Samuel Eto’o tricking his way past Nemanja Vidic and beating Edwin Van Der Sar at his near post.

From then on Barcelona bossed the midfield, and with it the entire game.  Ryan Giggs and Anderson were midfield pedestrians as they watched the stars of the show – Iniesta and Xavi.

In the semi-finals, Manchester United absolutely annihilated a good Arsenal team, while Chelsea contained Barcelona over two legs by cancelling out Barcelona’s midfield dominance, short passing ‘give and go’ style of total football, and most importantly man-marked Lionel Messi out of the game.  Barcelona had one chance in the second leg against Chelsea, and scored.

Though Man Utd have played for much of the season with a solid defence, it is not their way to cancel out another team in the way Chelsea did against Barca.  Manchester United’s philosophy is to score more goals than their opponents.  But Barcelona gave them little opportunity to do that, and in the second half, with United having to sacrifice a more balanced formation for attacking options, United became more exposed, leaving Lionel Messi to punish them in the way he was not able to do against Chelsea.

With second half substitutes Carlos Tevez & Dimitri Berbatov joining Wayne Rooney & Cristiano Ronaldo, and Man Utd looking like they might get back into the game, Barcelona hit them on the counter attack again, resulting in a sublime header by Lionel Messi from a Xavi cross.

As the final whistle blew I have never seen the Manchester United players look so shocked.  They don’t get beaten that often.  But more over, I have never seen them totally outplayed before, which I think was the reason for the stunned expressions. That said it was great to see both Alex Ferguson and the players being so magnanimous in defeat.  Ronaldo was last to collect a losers medal and made a point of shaking hands with the Barca players, as they waited in line to receive their winners medals.  A close up of a sincere Alex Ferguson applauding Barcelona as they received medals from Michel Platini.  I know Chelsea’s fury was aimed at the referee and not Barcelona in the semi-finals, but admitting defeat to a better team so soon after the event is a great advert for the game.

So, will Cristiano Ronaldo be facing Lionel Messi again next season?  Victory in the Champions League gave Barcelona their first ever treble, along with the La Liga title and the Spanish Cup and Pep Guardiola his second winners’ medal – he also won the trophy in 1992 as a Barcelona player.

Their closest rivals, Real Madrid need to rebuild if they are to seriously challenge Barcelona domestically, next season.  No doubt the ‘Ronaldo to Real’ will once again be alive and kicking by the time you read this.

The pre-match hope and scarf waving at the Emirates Stadium lasted 11 minutes. Two goals in two minutes from Man Utd and the game was over.  Manchester United were stronger in every way and absolutely destroyed Arsenal.

When Ronaldo scored a trademark second goal to make the aggregate score 3-0, the animated close up of Arsene Wenger hiding his face in his hands told the whole story.  United were on fire, as Rooney and Ronaldo were simply unstoppable.

The game ended 3-1 with second half goals from Ronaldo and Robin Van Persie from the penalty spot, after Darren Fletcher was penalised for a last ditch challenge on Cesc Fabregas.  The challenge was a good one and if anything it was Fabregas’ reaction and accentuated fall that got Darren Fletcher the red card which means he will now miss the UEFA Champions League Final on Wednesday 27th May.

Manchester United will play Barcelona in the final after they managed an equalising goal in the 92nd minute in a game of few opportunities and plenty of appalling referee decisions.

Michael Essien had put Chelsea ahead in the 8th minute but they always needed the safety of a second goal as one goal for Barcelona would be enough for the Catalan team to go through on the away goal rule.

Chelsea felt they had four clear penalty appeals.  after seeing several replays I feel they really only have a case with two.  In a post match interview Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink said he couldn’t understand why Chelsea were not awarded three penalties.

John Terry said there were six or seven penalty appeals (not sure about that, John!)  and the semi-final was a shambles due to an inexperienced referee.  That I agree with.  Unfortunately, he went on to say he was “fully behind Didier Drogba for the way he reacted.”

The way Drogba reacted after the final whistle was not acceptable. Pointing a finger in the face of the referee after storming back onto the pitch from the dressing room and spitting obscenities directly into a live tv camera is not the way to behave.

What is clear is that such big occasions deserve referees with bags of experience; and though it seems totally injust, Manchester United v Barcelona is possible the UEFA Champions League final that all neutrals would have wished for.

Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard was the other name on the short-list.

Along with Vidic, Van Der Sar and Gerrard, I would say that Chelsea’s Frank Lampard has had another outstanding season. Manchester United set a new record for the most games without conceding a goal.

More than any other Man Utd player, that record was down to Van Der Sar and Vidic.

The only other players that have had such a controlling influence on the result of so many games this season has been Lampard and Gerrard.  In nearly every game I have seen them play this season, they have been consistently among the best players on the pitch, dictating the play as well as scoring a hatful of goals from midfield.

But maybe this year’s Players’ Player of the Year award is more a sentimental reward for Ryan Giggs, considering he has never won the award before and who may make his 800th appearance for Manchester United this Wednesday against Arsenal in the semi-final first-leg of the UEFA Champions League.

But for all that, Man Utd stride on towards an 18th title which would equal Liverpool’s record.

It looked liked Tottenham Hotspur were going to push the door of the Premier League title race wide open on Saturday with a brilliant first half display at Old Trafford.  Manchester United were stunned by two first half goals from Darren Bent and Luka Modric.  But the second half was a different story.

The game reminded me of how a boxer would have to catch Mike Tyson with a sucker punch before he would get angry and destroy them.

At the start of the second, it was clear Alex Ferguson’s half-time team-talk was enough to kick-start Manchester United into playing a faster tempo game, and immediately Spurs found it difficult to cope with.  Though it wasn’t until a very dubious penalty was awarded that Manchester United went on the rampage.

Gomez had rushed from his goal to push the ball away from the toes of Michael Carrick.  He made clear contact with the ball, but another shocking penalty decision at Old Trafford was given in Man Utd’s favour.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored from the penalty and the 60,000 crowd raised the roof as Tottenham heads went down and their game instantly fell apart.

Harry Redknapp was fuming; and he was right to twitch and nod his disapproval throughout the second half.  But penalty decisions come and go.  If Harry Redknapp is seriously considering Tottenham’s chances of breaking into the top four next season, he should be very concerned with the poor mentailty and lack of fighting spirit his team showed last Saturday, as Manchester United romped home to a 5-2 victory with further goals from Ronaldo, Dimitri Berbatov and two from Wayne Rooney.

Spurs v Man Utd – de ja vu

It was on 29th September 2001 when a similar thing happened at White Hart Lane.  Glenn Hoddle was the humiliated Spurs manager on that day, as Man Utd came back from 3-0 at half-time, to win 5-3.

A Spurs victory would have made the Premiership title race more exciting.  But as it is, Man United go three points clear with a game in-hand.  Next stop, Middlesborough.