Serie A is in a rare state of turmoil, but Marcelo Lippi's team gave the country something to shout about. Paul Virgo reports on a remarkable Italian renaissance

With the Moggiopoli referee-allocation scandal raging, Italy had to brave some pretty bizarre circumstances on the way to becoming world champions. Gianluigi Buffon had to leave the pre-tournament training camp to talk to magistrates about allegations of illegal gambling. A fortnight before kick-off consumer groups were calling for Marcello Lippi’s head because his son Davide is under criminal investigation. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) prosecutor requested that Juventus be relegated two divisions and that AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina be sent down to Serie B for match-fixing the day before the semi-final with Germany. If that were not enough, the team also had to digest the upsetting news of a suicide attempt by Juventus’s recently appointed sports director Gianluca Pessotto, a former Azzurro and a friend of many players.

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Brazil travelled to Germany as favourites, but Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and friends rarely looked worth the hype. As Robert Shaw explains, they paid the price for putting commercial concerns ahead of football

Carlos Alberto Parreira is an articulate coach, accustomed to giving presentations. But when it really mattered at the World Cup he was strangely speechless. After Thierry Henry slipped past a sleeping defence, Parreira seemed dumbstruck and delayed shuffling his pack, with Robinho left on the bench until it was too late. Brazil’s formation based on an attacking quartet was set in stone, although the notoriously cautious coach had only really seen it work well against Argentina in the Confederations Cup final last June and in the drubbing of Chile in September.

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You couldn't avoid seeing the endless plugs for sponsors but, wonders Barney Ronay, did they make you buy anything?

This was surely the most energetically sponsored World Cup yet. Certainly, there was something different about the corporate presence. FIFA and your local TV channel may have long since run out of easy ways to up the logo content. But somehow it was all just a bit more insistent. The pitch perimeter advertising was standardised at this World Cup, with – you’d imagine – each step closer to the holy grail of the halfway line eagerly auctioned off. Close your eyes and you can still picture them all. Hyundai, Toshiba, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola (in Brazil colours). Something called Avaya. At most grounds the advertising boards themselves had either been extended to cover the first couple of rows of seats or framed by a lemon tarpaulin to give them that extra grab factor. These ads were super-sized – bigger and, unless there’s something drastically wrong with the contrast on my television, brighter, too. 

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All the complaints about the ticketing didn't stop the grounds being full. But, as Steve Menary explains, that doesn't mean people were wrong to be angry at a system in need of reform

 Saudi Arabia’s opening group match against Tunisia on June 14 summed up the World Cup ticket paradox. There were a few empty seats before kick-off, but not enough to argue with an announcement that the most obscure first-round game had filled one of the biggest grounds, Munich’s impressive new 66,000-seat Allianz Arena.

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England always struggle with penalty shootouts but, as Ben Lyttleton explains, the more professional approach of others is leaving them ever further behind

Paul Robinson began the World Cup accused of trying to make one of his clearances hit the giant box of video screens that hung over the centre-circle of the stadium in Frankfurt. He ended the competition staring far too often at the same screens, this time at the stadium in Gelsenkirchen, as each Portugal player walked 40 yards to take a penalty in the shootout that ultimately knocked out England.

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