FIFA have named their ‘squad of the tournament‘ and there is actually an English player in it – John Terry. I think Rio actually did better than him, but never mind.

The whole squad is:

Buffon (Italy), Lehmann (Germany), Ricardo (Portugal); Ayala (Argentina), Terry (England), Thuram (France), Lahm (Germany), Cannavaro (Italy), Zambrotta (Italy), Carvalho (Portugal); Ze Roberto (Brazil), Vieira (France), Zidane (France), Ballack (Germany), Pirlo (Italy), Gattuso (Italy), Figo (Portugal), Maniche (Portugal); Crespo (Argentina), Henry (France), Klose (Germany), Totti (Italy), Toni (Italy).

All good players, but you have to wonder why Franck Ribery isn’t there. There is an understandable bias towards players from teams who have been successful: 11 from the finalists, 7 from semi-finalists and the other 5 from quarter-finalists which makes it all a bit like the Oscars which seems to discount the possibility of an actor turning out a great performance in an otherwise poor film. Is there no chance that an average team can have a star in it?

I would like to have seen the Ghanaian goalkeeper, Richard Kingson in there. He might have let in 3 against Brazil, but saved many more.

Still, there are a couple of encouraging things about the list: the non-inclusion of C. Ronaldo for a start, and that FIFA resisted the temptation to include more than one Brazilian just out of habit.

They really should have named a manager for the squad as well. Klinsmann would be a strong contender to manager of the tournament, with Guus Hiddink in with a shout too. I don’t think Sven would be amongst the top 30 contenders, but would be battling it out with Van Basten for underacheiver of the cup.