145;Goalkeepers: The saving grace146;

Yet, on a blustery evening in Saitama, at way past midnight and still a couple of hours before the sanctuary of a warm bed, McIlvanney, a personal favourite of this writer8217;s, showed his zest for the World Cup was intact despite his obvious disappointment with the football.

Excerpts

On the quality of football. This is a very disappointing World Cup. The football has been of very poor quality. There8217;s not been a single team that has convinced me it is a worthy world champion. England lacked the imagination, they let themselves down. Brazil simply aren8217;t good enough, neither are Germany. I wanted Spain to win, I think Raul is one of the few great players.

Senegal? They were good to watch, yes, very entertaining but you knew they weren8217;t going to get anywhere. South Korea showed they had the guts but they looked to me as though they were playing for a gold medal in the Olympic team marathon, not for the World Cup.

On Brazil-Turkey semis: The first half wasn8217;t bad but the game fell away in the second. After Ronaldo scored that goal I kept thinking, This is it, this is when they8217;re going to turn on the magic. But they didn8217;t. Some people think they were holding back for the final but I think this is as good as they play. They are a moderate team, they lack a midfield. They had some moments of magic but they just couldn8217;t feed their forwards. And what was Rivaldo doing in midfield? He was invisible in the second half, he8217;s a forward8230;

I wanted Brazil to win because I don8217;t want a Turkey-Germany final but then I was hoping Turkey would equalise, maybe that would galvanise the Brazilians into doing something.

What8217;s the reason? It8217;s mainly the long club season. There was a time when Brazil would do what Korea did 8211; take four months off to prepare for the World Cup. Now it8217;s just a punctuation mark in their club calendar. You can8217;t play so much club football and then come here and put on a show; you have to treat this as something special.

On commercialisation: I think it8217;s killing the game. There8217;s so much temptation now for footballers to be famous rather than great, to be celebrities rather than heroes. Even the mediocre footballers are getting thousands of pounds for what they do off the field, often much more than what they get for being on it. It obviously takes up time and energy and distracts from the larger purpose. I see their point, too: they want to make their money before it8217;s too late, it8217;s a fickle profession. But you have to keep a perspective.

On Beckham, the epitome of commercialisationBeckham is a good player. He8217;s probably the best in the world at what he does, which is crossing the ball. But that8217;s the sum of his game; it8217;s so easy to work him out, to close him down. So he8217;s not a great player. And still you see the fuss being made of him and how he enjoys it. He was nice, decent lad when he started off, even when he became famous, but now the whole thing has gone out of control.

This whole business about his hair and the way he dresses; it8217;s all very well and he gets paid handsomely for it but he8217;s the England captain and he must realise that it affects his game and the rest of his team.

On the stars. For me, the only position that has consistently played well are the goalkeepers, and I think that says something about this World Cup. Kahn has been magnificent, so has Brad Friedel, young Casillas, even the Brazilian Carlos is better than the average Brazilian keeper. Recber of Turkey is good, too, but he gave away the penalty the first time the two teams met8230;

What8217;s made him happy this tournament. The best thing has been to see Ronaldo play. It8217;s like a cloud has lifted over him, he now has the freshness, the enthusiasm he had so many years ago. His goal in the semi-final was an example; how he controlled the ball and then shot before anyone thought he would. I hope the next two-three years are good to him so he can recover from the terrible things he8217;s been through.

On the final Germany are a modest side but they8217;ll be encouraged by what they saw today. And if Brazil play like this in the final, they8217;ll be in trouble. Germany have one strength: they know exactly what it takes to win a match at this level.