2010 World Cup awards

In a tournament where several of the unknown shined, FIFA selected their three stand out young performers of these finals and it was a German who continued a legacy of German prodigy’s shining at the World Cup. Thomas Mueller, winner of the FIFA Golden Boot, was rewarded with the 2010 FIFA Best Young Player award following on from Lukas Podolski who won the very first four years ago at Germany 2006.

Thomas Mueller, 20, would have almost certainly been in the reckoning for the player of the tournament were it not for his age, although we see little reason why he shouldn’t have been up for both awards. However, he was rightly voted the most promising player of these finals ahead of Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan and Mexico’s Giovanni Dos Santos and will now head back to Germany with his club Bayern Munich baring two of the biggest accolades any player could ever wish to win. And my word didn’t he deserve this award. Two of Germany’s more high profile wins at these finals were over England (4-1) and Argentina (4-0) and it was Mueller who was instrumental in dismantling two of football’s giant nations. He scored twice as Germany knocked the English out, and another against Argentina before finishing off with the third place play-off’s opening goal. He was one of the more outstanding performers in South Africa, with his menacing runs often no match for defenders, and will now be a hot property when the transfer market opens.

Thomas Mueller World Cup Statistics:

Games Played: 6
Minutes Player: 473
Goals: 5
Assists: 3
Shots: 13
Shot on Target: 5
Passes: 241 (61% pass completion rate)
 

The Yashin Award is presented to the stand out goalkeeper of the tournament, with the 2010 winner following in the line of some big names such as Gianluigi Buffon (2006) and Oliver Khan (2002). Despite not looking as sturdy and reliable as one would ideally want their keeper to be, Iker Casillas took home the award after conceding just two goals in seven games and keeping a staggering five clean sheets, thus equalling the feat of Buffon who won the award four years earlier.

While we were never really inspired by Spain’s number one, Casillas did come good when it really mattered, in the final, and the Real Madrid shot stopper pulled off a string of fine stops against Holland to deny what might have been a Dutch victory. His keeping statistics through the tournament, more notably just the two goals conceded, meant he did win the award on merit although the manner in which Spain tend to play, dominating possession throughout, means he was never going to concede a great deal.

Unlike with the Golden Boot and Golden Ball, Iker Casillas would have been a popular choice with punters, so the Spaniard’s success may have landed some bookmakers in a spot of bother. Casillas also becomes the first Spaniard to win the award.

Iker Casillas played every minute of every game for Spain in a winning World Cup campaign, while the only two players to have scored against him in South Africa were Gelson Fernandes of Switzerland and Rodrigo Millar of Chile.

Even we were caught off guard by FIFA’s recent ruling that should their be two or more players on the same amount of goals come the end of the finals that the player then with the most assists would walk away with arguably the most sought after personal accolade a World Cup has to offer, certainly for a forward. The strange thing about this year, even though there were two forwards in the shake-up, was that a midfielder would win the award. Thomas Mueller of Germany ousted the likes of David Villa, Diego Forlan and Wesley Senijder, whom all scored five goals in South Africa, to get his hands on the Golden Boot after adding three assists to the three goals he collectively amassed through his stay with Germany.

Thomas Mueller is a midfielder/winger by trade and by winning the 2010 Golden Boot in South Africa became the first player since Grzegorz Lato, Poland, to win the prestigious award without playing in a forward role. Closely followed in second place was Spain’s David Villa, who missed several glorious opportunities to grasp the award in the final but will now have to settle for silver instead of Gold. In third place was another midfielder, Wesley Sneijder. The Dutch schemer did get fortunate with two of his goals in that one definitely wasn’t his and the other took a wicked deflection, but he should be proud of his achievements nonetheless considering he plays in a deeper position than that of Villa or Mueller. There was another player which scored five goal in that of Uruguay’s Diego Forlan but he unfortunately didn’t collect any scoring honour and had to settle for fourth place. All three (Villa, Sneijder & Forlan) had 1 assist but the decision then went on goals per minute, and with Forlan playing almost every minute of every one of Uruguay’s games, he missed out.

It would have taken a shrewd punter to have predicted beforehand that Germany’s Thomas Mueller would pick up the 2010 FIFA Golden Boot. We’ve seen him on plenty of occasions for Bayern Munich and can honestly say we thought nothing of him, in fact we even thought he was a load of rubbish, but he surprised us all with his scoring antics in these finals and at just 20 years-old will now be highly sought after in the summer transfer market.

Final Scoring Standings:

Thomas Mueller – 5 Goals (3 assists)
David Villa – 5 Goals (1 assist)
Wesley Sneijder – 5 Goals (1 assist)
Diego Forlan – 5 Goals (1 assist)
Gonzalo Higuain – 4 Goals
Robert Vittek – 4 Goals
Miroslav Klose – 4 Goals