Golden Balls
FIFA hands out four individual awards, all gold, after the World Cup Final. Let's give awards to a full eleven, subs and manager. Criteria: players who made greatest impact on their team's performance
My dad asked me to pick my best eleven from the World Cup. My criteria were players who made the greatest impact on their team’s performance, combined with outstanding moments.
Goalkeeper: Unai Simón. Most clean sheets (he won the Golden Glove at this tournament), excellent throughout the tournament and just a nice guy by the looks of it.
Fullbacks: Marc Cucurella and Pedro Porro. Cucurella, for his solid performance throughout the tournament and Porro, for the same, and that goal against France (below).
Central defenders: Roberto Lopes of Cape Verde and Mbekezeli Mbokazi of South Africa. Lopez for his great tournament and standout performance against Argentina. Mbokazi for playing like he is more experience than his age suggests and his performance against Canada in the Round of 32.
Midfielders: Rodri at 6; the backbone of Spain and deserves Golden Ball winner as the player of the tournament. Jude Bellingham and Lionel Messi. Bellingham carried England, and Messi, at 39, dragged Argentina to the final when they turned games around from the death.
Forwards: Erling Haaland at 9, with Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé either side. Haaland, from Norway, for his goalscoring throughout the tournament; Mbappe scored the most goals in the World Cup and won the Golden Boot, while also becoming the all‑time leading World Cup goalscorer; and Dembele, because he showed why he was the Ballon d’Or winner and combination of goals, assists and unpredictable in one-on-ones.
The Bench: Johan Manzani from Switzerland, the young player of the tournament. If he didn’t get injured, Switzerland would have had a better World Cup. Rele Mofokeng from South Africa, because when he was allowed to (against South Korea), he showed he could control a game from midfield. The leftback Sidney Lopes Cabral from Cape Verde did a lot throughout Cape Verde’s run, but that goal against Argentina deserves the Puskás Award. Ismail Saibari; his injury robbed us. Finally, Brian Cipenga, who plays in La Liga 2, but lit up England with the goal in the Round of 32.
Manager: Bubista (government name: Pedro Leitão Brito). Took a team from the Cape Verdean diaspora filled with lower league players based across Europe and went toe to toe with Spain, Uruguay, and Argentina.
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Thanks, Leo for a great all-tournament team. Hard to quibble about any of your choices, except I would say that Simón had all those clean sheets because his team had the ball 70% of the time, and he only had to make 10 saves in 8 games. I would nominate Vozinha because he made 25 saves in 4 matches, and had a clean sheet and seven saves against the eventual champion Spain. It wasn't just that he made a name for himself, he kept his team in the tournament, and almost pulled off the greatest upset in World Cup history against Argentina. But you have a great team here and thanks for a great review.