A netscape of the perfect ten

For instance — the `piledriver from distance’ award has to go to Nigeria’s Sunday Oliseh, who picked up a loose ball 12 minutes from the end of his side’s opening match against Spain and smashed a tremendous shot past stunned Spanish keeper Andoni Zubizarreta.

Although the Nigerians didn’t hit those heights again, that goal, which ultimately secured qualification from the "Group of Death" will linger in the memory. Now for the classically simple. Brazilians have an endless bag of tricks. But their goal in the semi-final against Holland was a masterpiece of how to execute a killer strike in two easy moves.

Rivaldo cut in from the leftsome 50 metres out and lofted a through ball to Ronaldo, who collected the ball on his toe and planted a low effort beyond Edwin van der Sar. If you’d blinked, you’d have missed it.

Holland themselves proved against Argentina there’s nothing wrong with the much-maligned long ball when it comes from the foot of a real artist — in this case Frank de Boer. He launched a perfectly flighted 50-metre pass towards the penalty area for Dennis Bergkamp to cushion the ball on his toe before cutting inside and smashing a right foot shot into roof of the net.For sheer drama, that one beat the lot as it came moments from the whistle with the Marseille quarter-final seemingly headed for extra-time. Unlucky England crashed out after falling victim to Argentina in the lottery of a penalty shootout in Saint Etienne.

But nobody who was there will ever forget Michael Owen’s goal. Beckham’s swirling free-kick against Colombia also rates a mention given that Brazilian deadball specialist Roberto Carlos failed to shine. ToOliver Bierhoff and Cesar Sampaio goes the honour of joint-best headed goal, although Zinedine Zidane’s pair in the final weren’t far behind.

And Sampaio set the ball rolling against Chile with the first Brazilian goal against Chile, taking off like a human dart to bury the ball imperiously in the net. For dazzling fluidity of movement, let’s single out Spain, who slaughtered Bulgaria at Lens.

Young striker Fernando Morientes delivered a lovely backheel to Real Madrid clubmate Fernando Hierro. He found Luis Enrique, who whipped through a precision ball beyond three defenders for Morientes to run onto and fire home.

Aside from Zidane’s final heroics, France’s best effort came when the chips were down against Croatia in the semi-final, where Lilian Thuram scored twice. The defender’s second was a gem — a sideways shuffle then a superb curling shot past Drazen Ladic to set up an historic final and leave 50 million French people asking if he wasn’t really a striker in disguise. For novelty value, let’sinclude Jamaica and Robbie Earle’s header against Croatia, which gave the Reggae Boyz their first ever World Cup goal, as well as Masashi Nakayama’s strike for fellow debutants Japan against the Jamaicans, that one the only Japanese goal of the event.

So there you have it — with apologies to Davor Suker, who poached half a dozen fine goals to finish top scorer.