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Below are our picks for the 2006 “Coach Jay” World Cup Awards, which recognize outstanding and unusual achievement on The Beautiful Game’s greatest stage.
The awards’ namesake is our father Jay, who has devoted half his life to the sport of soccer as a coach, teacher, referee, spectator and philosopher. We’ve elaborated on his traditional awards to the point of unrecognizability, but we hope the spirit still honors him, and perhaps occasions a guffaw.
You may want to take a look at the 2002 awards first. These were our first attempt, and many of the awards have been carried over to this year.
PDF editions are available from the above menu. If you need the Adobe reader, you can find it here. (If you'd like to link to this page, you should use www.entropycentral.net)
Nominees
Best Performance by a Striker Nobody’s Ever Heard Of
a. Jose Fonseca
b. Agustin Delgado
c. Asamoah Gyan
d. Lukas Podolski
Worst Performance by a Striker Everybody’s Heard Of (“The Batistuta”)
a. Andrei Schevchenko
b. Didier Drogba
c. Pauleta
d. Ruud Van Nistlerooy
Worst Performance by an Attacking Midfielder Everybody’s Heard Of
a. Frank Lampard
b. Francesco Totti
c. Zinedine Zidane
d. Landon Donovan
The Lebensraum Award
a. Miroslav Klose
b. Gerard Asamoah
c. Oliver Neuville
d. Lukas Podolski
The Bora Milutinovic Overachievement in Coaching Award
a. Ratomir Dujkovic (Ghana)
b. Guus Hiddink (Australia/PSV Eindhoven)
c. Jurgen Klinsmann (Germany)
d. Koebi Kuhn (Switzerland)
The “Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?/A Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You (Woo Woo Woo)” Award
a. Robert Pires
b. Fernando Morientes
c. Edgar Davids
d. Zinedine Zidane
Honorable Mentions: Clint Mathis, and that non-existent target man that everyone in England thinks Sven should have brought
Least Fortunate Country Abbreviation
a. S&M
b. ARG
c. GHA
d. USA
Best Ronaldo Impression
a. Ronaldo (Cristiano)
b. Ronaldinho
c. Robinho
d. Ronaldo
The Dunga Hard Man Midfield Award
a. Torsten Frings
b. Michael Essien
c. Claude Makalele
d. Gennaro Gattuso
The Roberto Carlos Award for Most Overlaps
a. Miguel
b. Fabio Grosso
c. Nuno Valente
d. Gianluca Zambrotta
Best Match of the Cup
a. Trinidad v. Sweden (0-0)
b. Australia v. Japan (3-1)
c. Tunisia v. Saudi Arabia (2-2)
d. France v. Brazil (1-0)
Best Goal
a. Bastian Schweinsteiger v. Portugal (56’)
b. Tomas Rosicky v. USA (36’)
c. Maxi Rodriguez v. Mexico (98’)
d. Tim Cahill v. Japan (85’ to tie)
Best Goal by a Defender
a. Fabio Grosso v. Germany (119’)
b. Phillippe Senderos v. South Korea (23’)
c. Robert Alaya v. Germany (49’)
d. Cristian Zaccardo v. USA (27’)
Best US Striker
a. Brian McBride
b. Cristian Zaccardo
The Roy Lassiter Award for Worst Miss of a Sitter
a. Thierry Henry v. South Korea (85’)…slotting this would have given Zidane his only assist from open play the entire Cup, tying him with CAFU