If I ruled the world....

Or, rather, if I coached the world...

This would be my 'team of the tournament' from this World Cup:

David Villa * Miroslav Klose

Kaka

Diego Forlan * Bastian Schweinsteiger * Wesley Sneijder

Jorge Fucile * Per Mertesacker * Arne Friedrich * Philipp Lahm

Vincent Enyeama

I had been tempted to go for a 4-4-2 with Holland's Arjen Robben wide on the right; but I wanted to find room for Kaka, who did play pretty damn well, even if he wasn't able to carry his team single-handed to the final (as Brazilian figureheads seem to be expected to do). And I'm moved to pass Robben over on moral grounds: his rolling around on the ground and pulling faces every time he suffers the slightest contact with a defending player (and sometimes when he suffers absolutely no contact at all) has become quite sickening. Moreover, I don't think he's really lived up to the promise of his first two run-outs after coming back from his thigh strain: in the last two games, the threat of his jinking runs was rather too easily contained by Brazil and Uruguay.

I think this formation gives more flexibility - with Schweinsteiger sitting just a little deeper, providing the pivot between defence and midfield as he has for Germany, and Forlan and Sneijder free to drift around where they will, perhaps even swapping sides, while Kaka links with the front two. More or less a 'diamond formation', in fact.

It's hard to look beyond the German back four, who have been awesomely impressive as a unit: Friedrich and Mertesacker offer a fine blend of experience and youth, and are an even rarer combination of height/strength and pace/poise on the ball - I lost track of the number of perfectly-timed recovery tackles, often inside the penalty area, that these two made. I liked Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué of Spain as well (especially Piqué; Puyol, bless him, is getting just a bit long in the tooth), but I think the German pair has the edge.

There's a lot to be said for taking the complete back four (and perhaps the goalkeeper too) from a single team, for the understanding that they'll have. Certainly, Philipp Lahm at right back was an automatic choice. He's been in sensational form, and doing a great job as captain for Germany; despite his diminutive stature, he's looked a dominating presence, and covers a huge amount of ground between defence and attack - even, on occasion, switching sides to fill in for the missing-in-action Jérôme Boateng over on the left. Spain's Sergio Ramos and Brazil's Maicon looked good going forward, but perhaps a little less robust in defence.

The left-back position caused me the biggest headache. I'd been tempted to take the entire German back line, but I think young Boateng has been the 'weak link' in that; not that he's played poorly, but he doesn't yet have the commanding stature of the other three, and he has tended to take a long time to recover position after forays forward down the flank. France's Patrice Evra and our own Ashley Cole are probably the two best left-backs in the world at the moment, but the dismal performances of their countries denied them a chance to shine at this World Cup. Spain's Joan Capdevilla is a rotten cheat (he got a Paraguayan player sent off by feigning - or grossly exaggerating - a facial injury), and Holland's Giovanni van Bronckhorst is really a bit past it (and hasn't done all that much apart from that stunning opening goal against Uruguay in the semi-final). Thus, Uruguay's very solid Jorge Fucile gets the nod.

The man between the sticks was a little bit of a problem too. I think Gigi Buffon is still the best keeper in the world, but he only played 45 minutes because of a back injury. Iker Casillas is starting to come good again now, but looked nervous as a kitten in some of the early games and has committed a few truly spectacular handling errors from which, for me, his subsequent good saves have not yet completely redeemed him (the Spanish fans got rather over-excited about his double save in the dying seconds against Paraguay, generously overlooking the fact that he really should have held on to the first one). Young Manuel Neuer of Germany was extremely impressive, but my vote goes - slightly sentimentally, perhaps (some consolation for the shabby way the team's been treated by their country's President) - to Nigeria's Vincent Enyeama, who was certainly the outstanding keeper of the group phase games: he only made one small error (which, alas, cost a vital goal against Greece), but a string of outstanding saves had kept his side in contention in that game up to that point (even though reduced to 10 men by a red card), as also in the very tough matches against Argentina and Korea.

Agree, disagree??

[I wrote this on Saturday night, before watching the final two games, but I'll delay posting it until some time on Sunday. Perhaps one of the Dutch, Spanish or Uruguayans will make me look a fool with a dazzling display in the last match, but this is my pick based on the bulk of the tournament.]