Twinty Tin’s Token Team of the World Cup Piece

I know what you’re thinking, but no, no we won’t leave the World Cup alone. Not just yet anyway. We’ve each taken a look back into our own lives since Sunday and decided to hang on to Twinty Tin to the bitter end, because we’ve each come to love the World Cup more than Fernando Muslera loves the Soccer City crossbar. So, following on from our token Awards-Based Review piece yesterday comes a token Team of the World Cup piece. In the past couple of days every media outlet worth their salt, and ITV, have been eliciting  past World Cup stars and well-informed football writers to selecting their choice tournament XIs. But what do they know? They’ll probably have based the selections on things like ‘reason’ and ‘merit’. The crazy bastards. Don’t worry, you’ll get no such thing from us here at Twinty Tin as our four key contributors each selected their own Team of the World Cup.

Twinty Tin’s Token Award Based World Cup Review Piece

The tournament may be over, but Twinty Tin isn’t quite done yet. As every other football related website on the planet ‘takes a look back’ at this year’s World Cup we decided to do something a little different. Sadly though the lack of a suitable arena hindered our planned World Cup 2010 On Ice spectacular and so we’ve had to fall back on plan B and just do one of those token award based round ups. Here’s the best and the worst and the ideal television panel of this year’s World Cup as viewed by the Twinty Tin team.

Match Report: Netherlands 0-1 Spain

Its the BBC’s coverage for Twinty Tin tonight, a decision vindicated by the probing questioning of Damian Johnson who asks an orange tracksuit clad Clarence Seedorf  “Still going for Holland?” The BBC have at least given the occasion suitable gravitas by ensuring their presenter and pundit panel are in full suits tonight rather than their usual Gentlemen’s Club shirt and trousers. And of course the other reason for opting for the Beeb’s coverage is that they know how to put together a damn good sporting montage, the one they produce in the lead up to kick-off being particularly superb.

On this day… 11th July 1982

And so here we are, at the tournament’s end, the sixty-fourth game of the 2010 World Cup, and after all the expectation and excitement surrounding Argentina and Brazil, it is an all European Final between Netherlands and Spain. The 1982 tournament also saw a much-fancied Brazil side bow out earlier than expected to give way to an all European denouement; West Germany and Italy who faced each other in the World Cup final, on this day twenty-eight years ago.

Match Report: Germany 3-2 Uruguay

The rain is falling in the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, but that’s not going to stop the World Cup’s evil overlord as Sepp Blatter makes it out onto the pitch to meet the teams. The Uruguayan squad are not vieiwing the third place match as anything other than another battle and at the culmination of their National Anthem most of the squad break out into some old school warm-up exercises, all running on the spot and squat-thrusts. Germany have made a few squad changes meaning Bastian Schweinsteiger has taken over as captain from Philipp Lahm, the former possessing that rarest of things, a neck wider than his own head.

On this day… 10th July 1994

Germany play in the third place play-off tonight, and if any nation’s presence in the last four should come as no surprise it should be theirs. The 2010 World Cup represents the twelfth time Germany (or West Germany) has appeared in the semi-finals, that’s one more occasion than the rest of this year’s semi-finalists combined. Only twice in the last eight tournaments have Germany failed to reach the World Cup semi-finals, the first of which came courtesy of a shock quarter-final defeat to Bulgaria which happened on this day sixteen years ago.

World Cup Top Tin; #5 Worst Kits

International football kit design is not an area in which it is easy to make mistakes. The basic colours and styles have long been traditionally established, often to the point of also being the team’s nickname, and you don’t have any fiddly or awkwardly coloured sponsors logos to factor in. And yet some countries continue to get it all wrong, all very, very wrong. Here Twinty Tin looks at those who have taken to the field with all the sartorial style of Dame Edna Everage

On this day… 9th July 2006

The 2006 World Cup was an odd one for me. Having followed the tournament intently from the start, I flew to the United States the morning after England’s quarter-final exit (incidentally seeing the passenger next to you produce a newspaper with the headline of End of the World just before take-off does not lead to carefree flying) and subsequently the semi-finals and final itself barely registered with me. I watched the final flat-out on a motel bed in San Antonio, air conditioning on full, as I wilted in the early afternoon Texan heat on this day, four years ago.

On this day… 8th July 1982

A quick quiz question to start, what has happened to the following fourteen nations that has not happened to any other; Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Ghana, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia? The answer is that they have lost a World Cup Finals penalty shoot-out. Prior to the introduction of the penalties, drawn knockout matches were replayed, as happened several times at the 1938 World Cup. With concerns over scheduling FIFA introduced penalties as a method of separating drawn World Cup ties in 1978, but it was not needed, indeed not since the 1938 tournament had a match remained level at the end of scheduled play. And so the first ever World Cup finals penalty shoot-out took place at the end of an epic semi-final, four years later, on this day in 1982.

Match Report: Germany 0-1 Spain

Has it really taken until the semi-final for one of the mascots to get above their station and give a cheeky wink and a wave to the camera as it pans along the line during the Anthems? Someone at FIFA does have a sense of humour though it seems, having ensured one of the tallest mascots of the tournament thus far is placed next to Philipp Lahm. With the match underway Guy Mowbray describes the opening exchanges as being “cagey”, though perhaps it may be fair to wait a little more than two minutes in is a little early to be sure.