Best and Wurst

Observer Sport's World Cup team on the summer's most memorable matches, players, fans, cheats and sweet, sweet curried gravy sausages

Best match

Germany 0 - 2 Italy

Totally compelling - and instead of getting cagier in extra time it grew more sweaty and more intense. Closely followed by Portugal 1 - 0 Holland: 16 yellows and four reds, pure grit, proper needle - a minor World Cup classic. Also, Japan 1 - 3 Australia and Ghana 2 - 0 Czech Republic: the Czechs were hit by Ghana's pace, spirit, skill and strength, and had absolutely no answer.

Worst match

England versus the world

Anything involving England - but that said, Sven's team were carefree, wacky, entertaining hippies next to Ukraine and Switzerland in the last 16: neither side fancied winning it in open play.

Favourite player

Fabio Cannavaro

Does what it says on the tin. Italian. Defender. And 100 caps when he plays today. Virtually flawless in every game and had to play without long-time partner Alessandro Nesta for almost the entire tournament. Peerless.

Least favourite player

The cheats

Top tournament for strong individual cheats: and even Cristiano was overshadowed by Mauro Camoranesi's devotion to diving and cheating - his red card for Juventus against Arsenal last season was the rule not the exception. Best, most elegant World Cup cheat, though? Thierry Henry. Embarrassing.

Best goal

The top five

1) Joe Cole against Sweden if he meant it. Otherwise...

2) Maxi Rodriguez for his twist, spin and bash for Argentina against Mexico. As pure a 25-yard knockout game winner as you could hope to see.

3) The 24-pass move that led to Esteban Cambiasso's goal against Serbia & Montenegro. Like a slightly too perfect computer-game goal.

4) Alessandro Del Piero's moment of personal release against Germany. He'd waited a whole career for the sprint and smash beyond Jens Lehmann.

5) Fabio Grosso scoring Italy's first versus Germany. A virtuoso finish and one of the tournament's most dramatic, shouty moments - a neat mirror of Marco Tardelli in 1982.

Best performance by someone you've never heard of

Figureido v Portugal

35-year-old midfielder, 20 caps for Angola, plays for Varzim SC in the Portuguese second division. Bustling, intelligent, calm, quick, hardly lost the ball and a great passer. Ideal for Portsmouth.

Best fans


Noisy, well behaved, drunk, tubby, funny and, given the performances they had to put up with - England's worst showing since fans started following the team in numbers, whatever the stats say - totally forgiving. Also good: Argentina, Poland, Australia; the Italian journalists who lost it totally in the press box when Grosso and Del Piero won the semi; the fan dressed as a hotdog in 33 degree heat; and the Togo fan who painted himself green with spots.

Best song


'One Superpower, there's only one Superpower', to the tune of 'Guantanamera' - The Girl from Guantanamo Bay. And England's 'I'd rather be a cabbage than a Swede'.

Worst fans


For booing France's national anthem. There was little of that sort of stuff in Germany, so when you heard it, it stood out.

Best ground


Steep, banked stands and intense atmosphere. It was special to see the Germany players on their lap of honour in Dortmund after the defeat against Italy, with the fans singing, weirdly, You'll Never Walk Alone.

Best pundit

Gunter Netzer

A legend as a player, now dry as dust on German TV - but strangely endearing for it. Looks like Jackie Stewart. In England, Adrian Chiles for being an all-round good egg. Plus, in the France v Portugal semi, the ball came into the stands towards him, he jumped up and neatly headed it back. Then he sat back down, turned to Marcel Desailly and Leonardo and said: 'I've always wanted to do that.' Respect.

Worst pundit

Urs Meier

Gave a former referee's view on German TV. Over and over again. Worst commentator? Soft target maybe, but sitting near Motty in a Stuttgart bar was a big Germany 2006 low point for Observer Sport. When Motty watches games on TV, he commentates on them. Loudly.

Best prediction

Boston Globe

Pre-tournament guide, Boston Globe: 'ENGLAND: like the New York Mets. Massively, ridiculously overrated by their media, always involved in some sort of comic downfall, insane injuries, woeful management. A car crash waiting to happen, at which stage the local media go berserk.'

Best coach

Ricardo La Volpe, Mexico

Marcello Lippi for the performance, Otto Pfister for style, but La Volpe for the attitude. Told reporters: 'Get out of my face!You know nothing. Don't break my balls, you fucking idiots.' Spent most of his time at Mexico's camp eating doughnuts under a roped-off parasol. Before the tournament, resigned three times live on air during heated radio interviews, only to deny doing so the next day. 'The media are mental,' says La Volpe. 'They are nothing.'

Worst coach


Five years of life-sapping tactical intransigence.

Best flair player

Frank Lampard

But seriously. Kaka was Brazil's one contender but, despite it all, Cristiano Ronaldo takes it for his girly, pansy stepover and double backflip routines.

Best tackle

Nuno Valente

On Aaron Lennon. Had to get it right, in the area, and did, although Lennon still tried to extract a penalty. Up there with Philipp Lahm's against Italy.

Worst tackle

Nuno Valente

A flying tackle, both feet off the ground, on Arjen Robben in the penalty area, in the war with Holland. Valente wasn't even booked. Robben was.

Best interception

Fabio Cannavaro

Against Ukraine, at 1-0 up in Italy's quarter-final. Also, AshleyCole stopping John Terry and Paul Robinson conceding what would have been a tournament-defining goal against Ecuador.

Worst substitution


Lars Lagerback made a change as Henrik Larsson was about to take a penalty against Germany. He missed. Also: Jose Pekerman taking off Juan Roman Riquelme, when only 1-0 up against Germany. They went out.

Best fashion

The future Mrs Buffon

Gianluigi Buffon's 6ft-tall model fiancée: made football shirts look good again. And cowboy boots. And denim mini-skirts.

Worst fashion


Don't be fooled by all the 'new Germany' stuff. Still plenty of leather, mullets and sock-and-sandal combos on show. They're still living our Eighties, and they love The Hoff. Talking of which...

Best Hoff moment


Hasselhoff left Germany early after his pre-tournament concert was cancelled. Next seen in London with puppet Lucy the Slut at the premier of puppet musical Avenue Q, before, according to reports, being thrown off Centre Court for being 'steaming drunk'. The Sun: 'Hasselhoff yelled at bar staff: "You should let me in. Do you know who I am? I'm The Hoff".' 'David just enjoyed the tennis,' says his PR. 'There was a mix-up over accreditation...'

Best World Cup food

The steak

Thai, Italian, Chinese, Indonesian - anything but German, though they did do good asparagus, decent wurst and steaks from heaven. Instead of the mottled bunch of veins down the local Tesco, it was big, fat and Argentine. Mmm...

Worst food


Currywurst and chips in a pub in Nuremberg: extruded blancmange-like glop covered in a sickly sweet gravy that may at some point have been introduced to a hint of curry powder. Gruesome.

Biggest flip-flop

Big Phil

'We know South American referees and that they know how to kill a game' - Big Phil on the referee in the France match. No comment on the South American referee in the England match.

Most predictable...

Press pack

The Sven-baiters in the British media nudging each other every time the camera panned along the line-up during the national anthem and settled on a mute Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Worst Fifa moment

Stripping fans

Stewards taking Dutch fans' trousers away because they carried a non-sponsors' name. Also: using pretty girls with signs to guide addled suits from corporate tents into the grounds. Sad.

Best image

Cristiano Ronaldo crying after defeat to France.

Meanest moment

Thumb sucker

Francesco Totti's thumb-sucking after that dodgy penalty against Australia. He claimed, lamely, he was celebrating the birth of a friend's son. Right.

Best names


Goliath, Loco, Akwa, Freddy, Rats, Love...

Best referee

Graham Poll

You can't beat supercilious referees making idiotic mistakes for comedy; it's like family-values Tories being caught cruising. But for Poll, England's contribution to the World Cup might have gone completely unnoticed. Others worth a mention: Benito Archundia, of Mexico, for being genuinely good in the semi between Italy and Germany; and Valentin Ivanov for 16 yellows and four reds in Portugal v Holland. Natural-born enthusiast.

Biggest losers


Attacked 'stupid wet men' after the predicted industry boom failed to materialise. Hundreds of Czech, Russian and Spanish prostitutes left Germany before the quarter-finals due lack of demand. 'We saw it all so differently,' said a Colombian. 'I just sat in my brothel alone.'

Worst behaviour

The press

24: Number of months the British press spent warning about English hooligan chavs looking to rip up Germany and disgrace English football. 24: Number of hours for first reports of journalist misconduct to come through, including: theft of a Fifa laptop from a press centre; wrestling eight police and two soldiers over press pass; naked drunk pundit up a lamppost; and an attempt to sell press accreditation on black market.

Best old boy


Supported Argentina like a madman - and wasn't hamming it up for the cameras. Also good to see Jose Chilavert eating for Paraguay and Carlos Valderrama's big hair still clinging on.

Best row

Argentine TV

First and best media centre 'bust-up' of Germany 2006: ex-Argentina coaches Carlos Bilardo and Cesar Luis Menotti, working for Argentine TV. The pair haven't spoken since a public row in 1975, but turned up by chance in the same press toilets in week one: Menotti walked in, saw Bilardo mid-stream and 'lost it bad'. 'I come in here to take a goddamn piss,' Menotti shouted, 'and I see this son of a bastard!' Bilardo, says a witness, 'half finished up and spun round, but Menotti had gone'.

Least cool

Walter Smith

At England v Sweden: walked out during the match after fans recognised him and began singing: 'You're shit and you know you are.'

Best traveller

Bora Milutinovic

11,000km: ditance travelled by jobless Bora Milutinovic, 61, (I'm still looking for work'), to watch 25 games in Germany: the first World Cup in which he hasn't been a coach since 1986.

Saddest tout

Morning after England and Brazil went out: 'It sucks,' said our local American tout. 'English and Brazilians spend money, goddamn Italians and French don't.' Getting tickets for any game was no problem. 'All our tickets come from the Fifa guys. They're totally corrupt.' Most unusual tout: The one-legged Scouser in a France shirt.

· Compiled by Paul Wilson, Amy Lawrence, Kevin Mitchell, Jamie Jackson, Anna Kessel, David Hills, Conrad Leach, Jason Cowley