[quote="Stoneburg"]I'm looking forward to see France slaughter Italy in the final and send the cheating primadonnas home crying, and Germany will be somewhat satisfied winning the bronze medal.[/quote]

Personally, I don't think that Portugal would be that easy opponent to France. In fact I think that they will win.Scolari is the best coach I ever saw in action and he will not let Zidane or Ribery play like Parreira did.

Well I disagree about Ballack, I think he's one of the strongest midfielders in the world and althoug he's not the best at anyting, he's so good at everything that he would command a place in pretty much any team. I'd pick him over Deco for example because althoug he is *slightly* worse at the creative passing he's *much* better defensively, in the air and has a higher work rate.

The thing about the German midfield isn't that they're world class players. You're right about that, Frings, Schweinsteiger and Schneider are good but not great, it's the way they work together. In this case, the end result is bigger than the sum of the parts. Brazils midfield is the opposite, the best individual players in the world, but not a world class midfield.

After this cup I say screw Kaka, Ronaldinho, Pirlo, Lampard, in my mind Riquelme is the best attacking midfielder in the world.

Stoney, I think you're right to say that how a midfield play together is more important to a team's success than the individual merits of the players. IMO one of the lessons of both this WC and Euro 2004 has been in the importance of getting the ball quickly to your best players, and supporting them selflessly when they have it.

The teams crammed with superstars (Brazil, England, Argentina) largely failed to live up to the hype. Eriksson's mistake (ok, the biggest of his many mistakes) was in trying for too long to accomodate the perenially overachieving Lampard at the expense of Gerrard's freedom.

I thought Chris Waddle (of all people!) made this point well the other night on the radio, when he said that what you need to focus on in order to succeed as a national team, is doing simple things well: identify your best players; build a team around them that will give them as much of the ball as possible in good situations; don't leave them stranded.

Rooney aside, I'm not sure which of Gerrard/Lampard/Beckham/Cole Eriksson thought were our best players. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that even he had any idea who he thought were our best players.

Anyway, I digress. I'm also a big fan of Ballack's. I think he and Riquelme have been the outstanding attacking midfielders of this tournament...so far. No wonder (as rumour had it) Lampard had his heart set on a move to Barcelona once Mourinho's interest in Ballack became clear.

Hopefully France will dispose of Portugal tonight, with ex-Arsenal skipper Vieira reserving some of his unique brand of attention for United's Ronaldo (no love lost there), and Italy will win the final. Yes Monk, I know they're a bunch of screaming, preening mummy-boy ponces, but at least they're a nation of football lovers, unlike the French.