World Cup 2006 has reached its conclusion, with Italy crowned the winners! We hope that you enjoyed the tournament and, if you’ve been a regular reader of World Cup Hippo, that the site has been an enjoyable and useful complement to the on-pitch action.
Since January we’ve published 148 World Cup related articles. These features have […]

Why, when England can draw upon a host of talented players who match the best in the world at club level, has our international team only managed a thimbleful of commendable performances over the last five years? A word that has been widely used to describe England’s performances in Germany, which seems quite apposite, is ‘joyless’. Sven […]

Much has been written about the standard of refereeing in Germany, and before WCH takes a four year holiday we thought we should comment.
At World Cup 2006 referees have taken a hard-line on rash tackles – perhaps too hard. It seems that every mistimed tackle is punished with a yellow card. Statistics demonstrate that injury levels have dropped at […]

G - Switzerland: 30
D - Portugal: 20
D - Ghana: 16
D - England: 20
M - Ecuador: 38
M - Brazil: 36
M - France: 35
M - Ukraine: 31.5
F - Italy: 60
F - Argentina: 55
F - Germany: 55
Overall: 396.5
World Cup Hippo ran its very own fantasy football game this summer called Der Spiel. This game had a unique format […]

We now know that it is possible to win the World Cup by being the ‘least worst’ team present. Italy’s performance in the final represents their contribution to the tournament overall. OK in patches, very cautious, could do better.
Upfront for Italy, Luca Toni wandered around like a child in a playground waiting to be invited […]

France were defeated in a penalty shoot-out and may feel somewhat hard-done-by, as they outplayed Italy for large periods of this World Cup final. A coolly converted Zidane penalty gave France an early lead, but Materazzi put Italy level when he headed home a Pirlo corner. The first-half was closely contested and any creativity was […]

Now that the World Cup is nearing the end, the time is right for some retrospective scrutiny of WCH’s pre-tournament views. Featured below is a small selection of the things we got right!
1. Pauleta
Herr Hippo informed us that Portugal striker Pauleta is an overrated player who is incapable of setting a big international tournament alight. Pauleta was widely […]