Good shout.

Last WC was truly dreadful and what made it the worst was them vuvuzelas.
This WC we have some quality attacking sides. An exciting German team, Argies who have come frightening forwards, even England this time don't have a bad attacking line-up. The thing which could make this a poor WC isn't the teams it's the god awful climate. Them earlier kick offs are going to be dull games IMO

Zidane's penalty still gives me goosebumps. How can a man be that cool that the ball would bounce off the bar and he doesn't move an inch

Chambers, that pen often gets overlooked because we all remember his headbutt.

Nerves of steal to do that against Buffon in a World Cup final.

Zidane was amazing the whole tournament...Him being 34 at the time makes that even better.

Ribery was very good from what i remember aswell, him being quite unknown at the time.

If there was a World cup that i would have liked to have seen it would have been Argentina 78, looking at some of the footage it looked a proper festival.

Lucky pen. An inch higher and he'd have been left looking silly.

Indeed. 94 stunk.

Last WC was bad, truly bad. But USA 94 was a whole new level of awfulness.

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Have to say i loved USA 94, thought it was the best world cup.

agree that 2010 was the worst for all the same reasons that have already been given.

1998 was good, 2002 not so, but i disagree with whoever said that 2006 had few memoerable moments. That Semi-Final in Dortmund is one of the top 5 football matches i've ever watched.

1994. Doomed from the moment Diana Ross sliced wide from 2 yards.

comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 3 minutes ago
Lucky pen. An inch higher and he'd have been left looking silly.
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Other players, maybe. But this is Zidane we are talking about.

Sure, he could have missed. But it was skill and gargantuan balls rather than luck.

1994. Doomed from the moment Diana Ross sliced wide from 2 yards.

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but that was a 'memorable moment' all the same, so still a good thing strangely.

whilst i enjoyed 1994, a world cup in America NOW would be totally different...

But it wasn't an inch higher, so it shouldn't matter.

He pulled it off, in the World Cup final, against one of the truly great keepers of the game. That takes skill and immense bottle to pull it off.

He tainted it by losing his cool in a different way. And probably cost them the World Cup.

I think had he stayed on the pitch France would have won, just because Zidane was brilliant and picking his moments in the big games and was class in that World Cup.

He chipped the ball through the middle and overhit it. I'm pretty certain he didn't mean to strike the woodwork on his way to score. Panenkas are overrated.

I think had he stayed on the pitch France would have won, just because Zidane was brilliant and picking his moments in the big games and was class in that World Cup.

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to me this is an illogical statement because Italy scored 5/5 penalties and surely even if Zidane had been on the pitch, Trezeguet would still have been one of France's 'takers' so i think it would still have worked out the same

The match was also deep into extra time when he was sent off. You can't say "France would have won" with him on the pitch in the lottery of penalty shoot-outs. Italy took fantastic pens on the day and Trezeguet who missed would probably still have been among the 5 takers for France even with Zidane among.

Didn't see your comment, Spikey. Great minds and all that.

There was still ten minutes to play. Would you put it past Zidane to get the winner before pens? I wouldn't.

Delighted that someone agrees for a change, Sherrif...

Bare in mind Darren that Italy conceded two goals in the whole tournament, 1 penalty and 1 own goal. No opposition player scored against them from open play in 2006 - so i think you could have trusted them to hang on an extra 10 mins...

Yeah true. I'm just of the opinion that Zidane would have pulled something out of the bag. By no means a certainty but just my opinion.

Komakino 78 was a really good world cup also loved the 1st one I saw all the way through albeit the highlights at 6.00pm the 1970 world cup in Mexico. The opening game was a bore fest Mexico v Russia but after that it got better & better.

I'm surprised to see people slating Italia '90. That and Mexico '86 are my favourite tournaments ever.

'90 - The Camaroonians kicking anyone with an ounce of skilll up in the air, an unheard of Toto Schillachi having the tournament of his life, David Platt's goal that still has Belgians crying to this day (I know, I like to remind them every so often), the Rijkaard/Völler incident, Gazza.........

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
comment by Komakino (U7809)
posted 3 seconds ago
The biggest excitement from 1994 was Aldridge kicking off on the touchline.
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Really? Not Romania and Argentina's thrill a minute 3-2 classic, or Brazil scrapping past the Netherlands by the same score? Or Bulgaria shocking the world with their brilliant win over Germany? Or Italy's last ditch saving goal against an impressive Nigeria?

There were loads of classic matches in 94, seems people just watch World Cups for England
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Agreed, 94 was great until the final.

Letchkov!!!

2010 was shat from start to finish.

1994

Only 2 groups were won by the seeded team - Brazil & Germnany, 2 teams dazzled on their debuts, Nigeria & Saudi Arabia, 2 teams finished 3rd in their Group despite winning their first two games - Belgium & Argentina.

A players scored 5 in a match, a 42 year old scored, there was the first indoor match, the Romania-Sweden game was amazing, 0-0 with 10 minutes to go,cue 4 goals, a red card and an intense penalty contest.

Italy twice won with 10-men from a drawing position, huge attendances, the competition marked the 'return' of Brazil, the whole thing with Bulgaria as mentioned alrady too.

Superb tournament at the time i thought, but maybe im bias as it was my 'first' world cup' and everyone fondly remembers their first...

I still have an issue with Zidanr being sent off in that game to be honest.