It was a tournament of contradictions and unrealized promise. This rendition of FIFA’s quadrennial international football tournament began with the promise of innovative, magical, imaginative, creative attacking flair and individual offensive brilliance, and before our very eyes morphed into a slow, plodding, calculating defensive affair where what mattered most was tactical rigidity, stifling defensive form, don’t take any risks and don’t make any mistakes. Nothing characterized the Jeckyl and Hyde nature of this tournament more than the Final on July 9^th, where 19 minutes of entertaining attacking quality was subsequently followed by over 100 minutes of stringent defense. From start to finish it was both entertaining and infuriating. This was not a World Cup for the ages but there still were performances that could be appreciated – and the unfortunate and lasting image of Germany 2006 will not be who won but the unfortunate meltdown of a football legend in a moment that so characterized this tournament.

In the end the team that did eventually win, Italy, thoroughly deserved this victory. In a tournament that actually did have a number of teams with attractive attacking quality, it was the ones with the ability to survive the direct attacking quality that were able to survive this war of attrition. Defense notwithstanding, Italy wasn’t better than anybody else, they were just the last ones left standing. Anchored by goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, now indisputably the best goalkeeper in the world, and captain and center defender Fabio Cannavaro, the best defender in this tournament through seven games (more on that later), Italy allowed just two goals in their seven matches, tying the record for fewest goals allowed. In fact, you can make the case that this incarnation of the Italian national team is the best defense in World Cup history for one very simple reason: Neither goal was scored during the run of play. One was on a penalty kick, the other an own-goal. This defense didn’t surrender one single goal – NOT ONE!

France came into the final having given up only one more goal than Italy and playing an equally oppressive defense. In a tournament that lacked any other individual who raised his game to carry his team, France had that in midfielder legend Zinedine Zidane, probably the most hypnotic creative magician of the last twenty years. At age 34 and ready to retire after this tournament, Zidane rediscover the Fountain of Youth and regaled all of us with his mastery on the ball, his heart, and his refusal to lose. And for one shining moment in the final we all thought that his crafty invention would carry him off into the sunset with a world championship as his departing memory.

But sadly, alas, in the 110^th minute of a tie match that went into extra time, a momentary leave of his senses caused Zidane to meltdown at the absolute wrong moment and without apparent physical provocation assault with a vicious head-butt Italian defender Marco Matarazzi, which earned Zidane a very warranted red card expulsion, sending him off into retirement just minutes before it should have. That move alone took the sails out of the French side and, without the best penalty kick taker in the world, probably cost them the World Cup. In one thoughtless moment Zidane erased twenty years of ingeniously memorable football and replaced it with that ugly image that will forever be indelibly stamped in our minds. His imprimatur amongst the all-time greats such as Pele’, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Best, Walter and Di Stefano was forever lost. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

While hypnotic attacking wasn’t the rule of the day by any means in this tournament, for the most part teams did go forward and attack, just not in numbers. Whereas the primary scheme used in Korea/Japan in 2002 was a three-man backline and five midfielders supporting two forwards, what ruled in Germany 2006 were proficient four-man backlines with five midfielders supporting just one target man. This more than anything came to define pace and tempo in this tournament because most teams actually went forward. With few exceptions the teams in this tournament sacrificed “the beautiful game” for a less efficient and certainly less entertaining direct attack. Scoring was down but there were still lots of shots being taken, albeit very few on target and very few by the target men in front of goal. Italy didn’t just keep eleven men in their penalty area, sit back and wait like they were in a World War I trench, and hope for the best. Italy was a prime employer of this rigid 4-5-1 formation which emphasized complete rigidity in the back, oftentimes circumventing the midfield altogether and getting the ball forward with long, direct passes. Quite honestly, Italy didn’t just look to score one goal early and hope to survive like their immediate predecessors; they actually played like their most successful predecessors of yore (1934, 1938 and 1982).

You could see the effects of this on the tournament stat sheet. The leading scorer, Germany’s Miroslav Klose, scored 5 goals, the lowest total by a World Cup leading scorer since 1966. The player who led in assists with 4, Italy’s Francesco Totti, was practically invisible for most of the campaign.

For those football purists and traditionalists that have spent the last thirty years complaining about the recent emphasis on defense, and thought this was another tournament in a long line of recent tournaments that were boring, I have one thing to say to you: GET OVER IT!!! Football has discovered the same thing every other team sport has: offense may wins games but defense is the quickest and cheapest way to get good fast, and above all DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS. The days of 5-3 shootouts where both teams bomb the hell out of each other are over. Defenses got better, defenders got way better, and coaches learned how to coach defenses against any kind of attack sent their way. Need proof? The highest scoring and most entertaining team in this tournament was Argentina – they finished sixth. Brazil was the second highest scoring team going into the quarterfinals – they finished fifth. Both teams couldn’t get a quality shot off to save their lives in the quarterfinals. Wanna tell me what good all of their mesmerizing ball skills did them?

It’s easy for me to appreciate and see the “beauty” – for lack of a better word – in a suffocating defensive performance like Italy’s this year, France’s in 1998, and Brazil’s in 1994, all World Cup winners (and also France’s and Switzerland’s this year). I’m an American, and as such we have gotten used to defenses ruling the roost. In gridiron football we Americans value a quarterback sack and an interception just as much as we value a touchdown. In basketball we value rebounds and blocked shots just as much as points scored. In baseball we value strikeouts and baserunners thrown out just as much as we value runs scored. We Americans also are smart enough to realize that things change, that in the long history of all the sports we follow there have been shifts in emphasis back and forth from offense to defense. Players, coaching, tactics, techniques, strategies, and technology change, and with it how the game is played. If you just leave the game alone and stop the ridiculous tweaking (like FIFA did in this tournament with a more juiced ball – God where have I heard that?) then the ever-changing dynamic will cause offenses to eventually open up and you’ll get more scoring. It’ll take time but it will happen.

But I digress.

In my opinion, the thing that had more of a ruinous effect on this tournament than the stifling defenses was absurdly awful officiating throughout. FIFA’s call to crackdown on fouls backfire miserably. The officials called so many yellow cards early that teams took to drawing fouls, wasting time and slowing down tempo and flow by becoming bad drama queens. Hardly a single game went by that a score of players didn’t flopped around on the pitch after insignificant or non-existent contact like they had just been shot by a sniper. It became infuriating watching these welfare ho’s writhe and flop around like a fish out of water desperately trying to hang on to dear life, only to get stretchered off and within seconds come back onto the pitch with nary a pain, running around as if nothing had happened. The objective for all these melodramatics was to get these card-happy officials to send off the offending target or draw a penalty kick – and on more than a few occasions they fell for it, inextricably altering too many games to the point of ruin. In America we have a saying: The best referees are the ones you don’t even know are there.

Two statistics spoke volumes about the overwhelming defensive and officiating nature of this tournament. The record of teams that scored first was 48-7. And there were a staggering 323 yellow cards and 27 red cards given, both tournament records by a mile. A typical match was this succinct: Score first, lockdown in the back, waste time, slow things down by diving a lot, get your opponent sent off while avoiding getting carded yourself.

This was arguably the smoothest run World Cup ever. The ticketing went off with few glitches, the stadia were first-rate, there were no instances of fan conflict to speak of, and the Germans were the most gracious of hosts, reveling in the party atmosphere while welcoming with open and friendly arms all of the diverse ethnicities and nationalities of the world. A big shout out to the Germans in general and in particular the one man most responsible for it, “Der Kaiser” Franz Beckenbauer, a football legend and one of the 10 greatest players ever. What struck me most about the Germans was their enthusiasm and boundless national pride. This month by far was their best post-World War II moment. All over the country, from the stadium in Nuremberg to Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, there are historical reminders of their horrific wartime and Cold War past. To their credit the Germans don’t try to run away from it or hide it, but rather -- in realizing that it was wrong -- acknowledge that it happened as a means of preventing it from happening again. I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but after over sixty years I think it’s about time the rest of the world stop expecting them to apologize for it. It is clear that they are embarrassed and ashamed by what happened.

What follows is an analysis of all the teams in this year’s tournament, in order of finish. Just click on the appropriately title icon to find out how your team did. Excuse me if it doesn’t grab you with its flow, but like this tournament I thought a more formal and direct approach would be more informative:

The Final Four

The Champions: Italy

Runner-Up: France

3.   Germany

4.   Portugal

The Quarter Finalists

5.   Brazil

6.   Argentina

7.   England

8.   Ukraine

Eight Who Made It To The Knockout Stage

9.   Spain

10. Switzerland

11. Holland

12. Ecuador

13. Sweden

14. Ghana

15. Mexico

16. Australia

Six Who Made Waves

17. South Korea

18. Paraguay

19. Ivory Coast

20. Czech Republic

21. Poland

22. Croatia

The Bottom Ten

23. Angola

24. Tunisia

T-25. Iran

T-25. United States

27. Trinidad & Tobago

T-28. Japan

T-28. Saudi Arabia

30. Togo

31. Costa Rica

32. Serbia & Montenegro

Just a quick comment about the awards handed out by FIFA at this World Cup:

         - For the first time I agree with just about everybody who made the all-tournament team with just one exception. How they could not make room for Switzerland center defender Philipp Senderos is just inexcusable. With all due respect to both Italy and France, both of whom took the air out of every attack they faced from June 9^th to July 9^th, by far the best defense in this tournament – and in fact the only one not to give up one single goal by any means – belonged to Switzerland. At the critical center of that defense was Senderos. A perfect tackler, a monster dispossessor, a marvelous presence in the air, a complete organizer of his backline, and an invaluable contributor on corner kicks and set pieces, Senderos did it all for a Swiss side that just couldn’t get any quality in virtually any other way. I think it’s fair to say that without Senderos, Switzerland doesn’t come within a mile of the second round. Cannavaro clearly deserves all the accolades he gets for his performance through all thirty days, but for the first 16 days of this tournament the best defender was Senderos.

         - Just what was FIFA thinking when they gave the Golden Ball award to Zidane? Not that he wasn’t the most hypnotically creative player in this tournament, especially when he made those imaginative runs through defenses with the ball on his feet, but his meltdown notwithstanding Zidane wasn’t nearly as valuable to France as Cannavaro was to Italy. Cannavaro wasn’t just a defensive rock, he was the captain of the team, the organizer of their tactics, and their technical inspiration. From his position in front of the keeper he carried Italy even more so than Zidane carried France. It just bugs me that most football aficionados still give short shrift to the priceless contributions of defense. No it isn’t pretty but it is necessary. Want the ultimate proof that Cannavaro’s contributions in keeping the opposition out of the goal was more important than Zidane’s contributions in getting France in the goal? ITALY WON!!! This is just another example of FIFA looking to artificially prop up the few attacking qualities of this tournament at the expense of what really characterized it. Forget the head-butt? It just can’t be any clearer.