Forlan set for Golden Ball as Germany claim bronze

: Views: 215

Do you like this article? Share it with your friends.

thebigtip award: up to $200 for best article – Read more

Forlan set for Golden Ball as Germany claim bronze

By Alan Nicolea on Sat, 10/07.2010

Diego for World Cup MVP - by Leander Schaerlaeckens from soccernet.espn.go.com

If this was goodbye, it's hard to imagine it being any sweeter than the one Diego Forlan had at this World Cup.

After the game, strolling toward the team bus, Forlan was stopped by German legend Oliver Bierhoff, who knows what it feels like to peak at a big tournament. Bierhoff, a good bit taller, extended his hand. "Congratulations," he said in Spanish. Forlan smiled a wide smile and thanked him.

Yes, congratulations were in order. For Forlan had almost singlehandedly led the un-fancied Uruguayans to the semifinals, helping to beat out France, South Africa and Mexico for the top spot in Group A in the process, and then discarding South Korea and Ghana in the knockout rounds, notching four goals in the process, all of them stunning.

Against Germany in Saturday's consolation game, he scored once again -- putting him in the joint lead for top scorer a tally as sweet and precious as all of his earlier goals when he volleyed a chest-high cross to Hans-Jorg Butt's left, leaving the keeper without a prayer. In the last minute, he curled a free kick, which would have sent the game into extra time, onto the crossbar. When Forlan was on the ball, Uruguay seemed like a team with a chance; when he wasn't involved, its prospects were far more bleak.

No team at this World Cup leaned so heavily on the brilliant moments of a single player. Forlan was asked not only to score when it mattered -- and that he did, netting equalizers against Ghana and the Netherlands, a go-ahead goal against Germany and the first two goals against South Africa -- but to take every corner, every free kick and pelt the opposing goal from distance, too. All the while he had to ward off the wrath of opposing defenses who knew full well that stopping Forlan meant stopping Uruguay. He did all of those things to perfection, making him the indisputably most valuable player of this tournament, regardless of what happens in the final.