Excellent summary, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

The group stages were excellent but there's been too many dull games in the knock-out stages, and, as you say, too many of the exciting teams just went home early, especially the Africans, Argentina, Holland, Czechs, USA and Australia. In every world cup in my lifetime there's games I really remember vividly, and moments that I can still mentally picture years on; although there's been some great goals this tournament, I think too many of the knockout games have either been too lacking in real classic performances or late excitement, and there are too few major stories. There also hasn't really been a team that has captured everyone's imagination, like France did in 98, S. Korea and Senegal did last time, Cameroon in 90.... Argentina just peaked too early I guess.

I'm also possibly slightly biased in that it was such a boring tournament for England fans; basically every game we played was a dreadful match. Portugal was about as interesting as a 0-0 draw with minimal chances can get, but then it was a 0-0 draw with minimal chances. I wasn't even that annoyed when we went out, we'd been playing with such an apparent lack of passion, quality, anything really that captivated your attention or really made you want to get behind the team. The Ecuador game was kind of dreadful, I guess we defended OK but the quality from both sides was poor, we sucked against Trinidad in another quite dull tie, the Paraguay game was simply awful, the Sweden game had a couple of fine goals and some good attacking play from the Swedes after half time but there was so little on the line it was hard to get excited. England were the dullest side in the tournament without a doubt; at least Italy have been quite attacking for them and France have been dull but effective at the right times. England were just dull and ineffective.

I also think it's kind of strange how few players have really put their hands up as rising stars or guys who're going to go on to even bigger things... I mean the young player of the tourney was Podolski, who I thought was kind of so-so, I mean he's decent but hardly a world-beater is he. Rooney understandably didn't do anything, being only semi-fit and playing in a poor England team, Ronaldo dived around and generally behaved like the greasy little prick he's always been at Man United, none of the Africans lasted long enough to have any up-and-coming stars make an impact, and the two finalists barely have a player under 25 between them. Riberry's been good for France (though he actually sucked big time in the first couple of games before coming good in the knockout stages), a couple of the Ecuadorians, meh, well I can't really think of anyone to be honest. Most of the tournament's best players have been defenders.

It probably didn't help the way the group stages were drawn - too many of the teams who'd have made things interesting in the knockout stages found themselves in tough groups.

I too am disgusted by the embarassing standard of refereeing, not especially due to the fault of the officials (who have generally done a mediocre, but not bad, job, in my opinion) but thanks to FIFA who seem determined to rip the heart out of the game in the belief that what people really want to watch is a non-contact sport in which players hurl themselves to the ground and moan for ten mninutes at the referee when any opposition player comes into the same time zone. I think that's detracted from the tournament a lot, for me - I feel like a lot of the really cheating players (divers and moaners) seem to have got away and have acted worse than ever with their bad sportsmanship and gamesmanship, whilst physical but basically fair players have been cautioned, sent-off and suspended in their droves.

As a counterpoint, though, a few bright spots:

1) It's been a wonderfully organised tournamant; the stadiums are great, the fans have been superb and Germany seem to have been wonderful hosts.

2) The play of Argentina, who had a great match with Mexico and produced one of the performances of the tournament against Serbia. I also think they've scored the two best goals (Candy-ass-o against Serbia and Rodriguez against Mexico).

3) Ghana producing a great effort to get out of arguably the toughest group in the competition.

4) Germany playing really exciting football with a system in which everyone knew their role and worked together; with the spirit in the camp even Lehmann and Kahn seem to be best buddies all of a sudden...

5) In many ways it's been more attacking than several recent tournaments, even though predominantly defensively-minded teams have made the final. Lots of fine goals and good attacking performances in the group stages.

6) The winners will be deserving; no-ones had a comically easy run to the final and both teams have had to beat 3 reasonable opponents in the knock-out stages.

7) The amazing finish between Italy and Germany; even though I generally dislike them greatly, I'm happy that the Italian team have given their fans something to cheer and maybe galvanised the nation a bit in the shadow of the corruption in their domestic game.

8) Zidane's potentially glorious swansong. I genuinely think if they go on to win this he could be regarded 2nd greatest only to Pele in HISTORY (or at least 3rd behind Pele and Maradona, in the post-war era).

9) Not too many penalty shoot-outs. I think there's only been 2 in the knockout stages? Must be a record just about. At least each game has had a clean winner.

10) Spain played wonderfully in patches, the tourney could've been much more exciting if Spain, Holland, Argentina and Brazil had all made the latter stages, shame they all choked...