FIFA has already awarded Diego Forlan the Golden Ball (Best Player) and Thomas Müller the Golden Ball (Top Scorer) and Best Young Player awards. Despite the handing out of "official" awards, we at the Sports Optimator feel that more are required. With no real rational behind them, we present our picks.
The Sports Optimator 2010 World Cup Awards
Team Of The Tournament : Spain (Teeth grinding...). Didn't look like a superpower, but managed to grind down their opponents and win games when it mattered.
Player Of The Tournament : Wesley Sneijder. This was tough, it was down to Sneijder, David Villa, and Mesut Özil. David Villa didn't snag the Golden Ball in the final and didn't really seem all that dominant. Özil looked like he was going to own the tournament, impressive considering that he didn't score much, but he looked spent against Argentina and turned into Mesut The Friendly Ghost against Spain. Sneijder gets the nod based on his overall play, not just goals and assists, and I think he meant more to the Netherlands than Müller did to Germany.
All that for nothing...Goal Of the Tournament : Giovanni Van Bronckhorst. Absolutely the most amazing goal of the tournament, Uruguay and the rest of the world never saw it coming. This barely beats out Carlos Tevez's blast.
Coach Of the Tournament : Joachim Löw. This could have been Bert van Marwijk, but Germany wasn't getting much hype before the tournament. Löw coached the tournament's juggernaut right up to the Spain loss, its safe to say nobody saw the Germans scoring the most goals and putting up three 4 goal games.
Biggest Disappointment (Team) : France. Do I really need to explain this?
Biggest Disappointment (Player) : Fernando Torres. This could have been Lionel Messi if we had gone with Expectations vs. Performance as the decider. Messi played very well but failed to score, and Torres just... failed. He clinched the award by pulling up lame in the final and rolling around on the ground, Liverpool is kicking themselves for not selling him before the World Cup.
Worst Coach : Raymond Domenech. See Biggest Disappointment (Team).
Still doesn't understand what went wrong.Worst Pass : Ricardo Osario. This clunker of a back pass could have doubled as the best assist of the tournament, I know Gonzalo Higuian and Argentina liked it.
Most Insufferable Arrogance : Didier Drogba. How dare you flag him offsides.
Most Enjoyable Schadenfreude : France.
Lack Of Class : Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast ended their tournament in a 3-1 loss to Brazil, but that isn't why they get to take home this award. Once they were down, and well beaten, they resorted to childish thuggery. The worst incident was followed by theatrics and Kaka getting a second yellow. The whole scene was bad enough to knock off Italy's performance against New Zealand as #1.
