There are plenty of World Cup best XIs floating around. Mr. David Beckham did one just before the final, and we did two ourselves, split between semi-finalists and non-semi-finalists.
There’s only one XI that goes in the history books though, and that’s the FIFA one. The FIFA World Cup All-Star Team was decided by the votes of FIFA.com Club members (that’s folks who’ve signed up at the FIFA website) and the results were announced today. So, as voted for by fans, the World Cup All-Star Team is as follows:
Goalkeeper: Iker Casillas (Spain)
Defenders: Philip Lahm (Germany), Carles Puyol (Spain), Maicon (Brazil), Sergio Ramos (Spain)
Midfielders: Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Xavi (Spain)
Forwards: Diego Forlan (Uruguay), David Villa (Spain)
That’s six members of the Spain team, and only one player – Brazil’s Maicon – who didn’t make the semi-finals. The teams also features three right backs and no left back.
Obviously it’s not worth being too pedantic about an All-Star team, but I think this shows that maybe an XI can’t really be selected via a fan vote. At least not unless there’s a separate vote for specific positions, like left back, that would otherwise be overlooked. Because now when future generations look back at World Cup 2010, they could easily assumethere were no decent left backs present, which is a shame for players like Uruguay’s Jorge Fucile and Portugal’s Fábio Coentrão. I think I’d much rather see the Best XI as selected by FIFA’s famed Technical Study Group.
Related posts:
- FIFA World Rankings July 2010
- World Cup Teams Ranked #1 to #32
- Spain Moves on to World Cup Finals
- FIFA World Cup 2010 PS3
- FIFA World Cup 2010 XBox 360
- Netherlands in the World Cup Finals
- Would You Eliminate World Cup Draws?
- Storm over ‘bunch of gays’ in Germany’s World Cup team
- Holland and Spain fined for World Cup final indiscipline
- Euro 2012 Qualifying Hath Commenced
