World Cup 2010 Flops

It was a World Cup of battered reputations as numerous global icons failed to live up to their billing.

Here is a team full of top flops. The only rule is one player per country. So Messrs Terry, Green, Barry and company should count themselves lucky.

1 Julio Cesar (Brazil)
The Inter Milan man came into the tournament with some people calling him the best goalkeeper in the world. But he blotted his copybook against Netherlands, failing to deal with a Wesley Sneijder free-kick that heralded Brazil's self-destruction. Called the Jabulani a 'supermarket ball' and ended up being invited to check out of the tournament.

2 Jonas Gutierrez (Argentina)
It is hard to know what raised more eyebrows - a Newcastle winger starting for Argentina, or that same winger playing right-back. Gutierrez had a nightmare against Nigeria and South Korea, got suspended and lost his place to the not-too-special Nicolas Otamendi. Gutierrez was too shaky defensively even for Diego Maradona.

3 Patrice Evra (France)
Not so much for his performance on the pitch (although that was dire) as off it. Appointed captain following Thierry Henry's demotion to the bench, Evra presided over a players' mutiny following Nicolas Anelka's expulsion from the squad. Led a team refused to train, and scuffled with France's fitness coach before being dropped for the final game.

4 Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
How Cannavaro must wish he had called it a day after captaining the Azzurri to glory in 2006. As majestic as he was then, he was useless in South Africa. Italy were simply atrocious at the back, and Cannavaro seemed completely at sea. Never more so than when left on his backside by New Zealand goalscorer Shane Smeltz. Che disastro.

5 Aleksandr Lukovic (Serbia)
Carries the can for a Serbian side that fell foul of a penchant for commiting ridiculous acts. Lukovic's red card against Ghana contributed to their 1-0 defeat, as did Zdravko Kuzmanovic's inexplicable handball. Then Nemanja Vidic did something similar against Germany, though Lukas Podolski missed the penalty.

6 Marek Hamsik (Slovakia)
The irony of Slovakia's progress to the knockout stages is that their so-called star man was a passenger throughout. The only noteworthy thing about the £25m Napoli man was his gravity-defying hairdo that made it look like he was being hung upside-down by his ankles. Robert Vittek and Miroslav Stoch shone instead for the Slovaks.

7 Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
The Portugal captain was not helped by Carlos Queiroz's ultra-defensive tactics, which left Ronaldo completely isolated up front. But as soon as frustration set in, Ronaldo did what Ronaldo does - he whinged, he dived, he pouted. And he spat towards a cameraman as he left the tournament as classily as he played it. But he did score against North Korea.

8 Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon)
It should not really be Eto'o in this position but Cameroon coach Paul Le Guen, who inexplicably chose to play his captain, his talisman, his best player and his only world-class finisher on the wing in the 1-0 defeat against Japan. Played in the middle in the following game against Denmark and scored after 10 minutes, but the damage was done.

9 Fernando Torres (Spain)
El Nino could make a monkey of me if he scores a hat-trick in the final, but somehow I doubt it. Torres has looked leaden-footed throughout the tournament and was dropped for the semi-final. Whether it is the remnants of a knee injury or a lack of match sharpness, we do not know, but the most damning indictment is this: he looks like an England player.

10 Wayne Rooney (England)
Don't blame England's formation. Rooney's performances were so awful and his normally sparky demeanour so depressed that a mere shuffle of personnel would not have made any difference. So completely did his form desert him that by the end, Rooney could not so much as control a football. He had enough energy to berate the fans, though.

11 Ayegbeni Yakubu (Nigeria)
Makes the team for one moment and one moment alone - the staggering missed open goal in the must-win game against Korea. A cross rolled in from the left, and all he had to do was divert it into the empty net from two yards. He missed. Yes, he slotted a penalty soon after but Yakubu's miss set the tone for some shockingly wasteful Nigerian finishing.

Manager: Otto Rehhagel (Greece)
As if the Greeks do not have enough to worry about, they have to watch the most boring national team in the history of football. So negative, they should have been sent home and replaced by Ireland after their opening game. Mercifully, King Otto abdicated after Greece's group stage failure.

All-French bench
Hugo Lloris
William Gallas
Yoann Gourcuff
Franck Ribery
Thierry Henry
Nicolas Anelka
Andre-Pierre Gignac

THE NON-FLOPS

Finally, here are three big-name players widely considered to have flopped, who actually had decent World Cups.

Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast)
The Drog's World Cup participation should come with an asterisk so big you can see it from space: *OF COURSE HE WASN'T HIS NORMAL RUMBUSTUOUS SELF, HE WAS PLAYING WITH A BROKEN FREAKING ARM! Given the unfortunate circumstances, Drogba actually did rather well, scoring against Brazil and nearly breaking the North Korean crossbar.

Kaka (Brazil)
For some reason, people just went off Kaka at this World Cup. Apparently he wasn't playing with his usual style, elegance or power. Maybe that's because he was getting sent off for having an Ivorian run into him. Or just maybe he was letting his lavishly-skilled team-mates have a go. And Kaka was certainly effective at the business end of the pitch, setting up three goals.

Lionel Messi (Argentina)
A victim of impossibly high expectations. When only an improvement on 1986 Maradona will satisfy the critics, you are always going to fall short. Messi might not have scored, but for four games he was actually rather sensational as the fulcrum of a free-flowing Argentine attack. Germany went out of their way to stop him and succeeded, but that does not make Messi a flop.