adidas Golden Awards - Players & Interviews
As another great footballing year draws to a close, adidas marked the occasion and celebrated this year's showpiece event - the 2010 FIFA World Cup - by holding their official Golden Awards. The SoccerBible has not only got the winners, but we've also got exclusive interviews with the honoured footballers...
Three very bespoke looking trophies were handed out to the star players from the World Cup, which included; the adidas Golden Boot for top scorer Thomas MÜller of Germany, the Golden Ball to Diego ForlÁn of Uruguay and the Golden Glove to World Cup winner Iker Casillas of Spain.
Diego Forlan
Uruguay s Diego ForlÁn collects adidas Golden Ball trophy for the best player of the FIFA World Cup™. ForlÁn netted five goals at the event and established himself as the most dangerous player on the pitch in each game he played. The 31-year old Atletico Madrid player follows Zinedine Zidane, Oliver Khan and Ronaldo in the list of past winners.
When you were told that you won this award, how did you feel?
Diego Forlan: Well it s unbelievable because if you think about all the players that were dreaming of the World Cup and trying to play well with their national teams and you get the chance to win it. Playing against all those very good players, it is unbelievable.
World Cup Memories - Were you happy with your performance?
DF: I tried to do my best in the World Cup and I was happy with the way I played. You know when you play well or you play bad and the team was playing really well.
The award - Casillas and M?ller also won an award. How do you think they played?
DF: Well Casillas is a great goal keeper, he s been doing really great for a long time, at Madrid and in the national team and the way he s playing and keeps playing he was a very key player for the team and in the final he saved two one-on-one against Robben that was important for Spain, and he s a great player you know he deserved the award. M?ller is a very young player scoring great goals in the World Cup and in great moments that the German team needed and he plays really well also.
Does transfer speculation annoy you or is it something you get used to?
DF: Maybe when they start talking….not this year but a couple of years ago maybe. You know where you are going to go, but nowadays it s rumours and people start talking. I see the news as the people see the news and try not to think about it.
Barcelona Real Madrid... they re not the only two teams are they?
DF: Well they are not the only two teams but I think these two teams they have a little bit of advantage over the other teams, their scores are very strong, they ve got plenty of money to buy very good players so they ve got an advantage and you can see that in the table, from their positions, where they are and the kind of points they are in front of the other teams.
Iker Casillas
FIFA World Cup™ winner Iker Casilas collected the adidas Golden Glove award for the best goalkeeping performance in South Africa. The Real Madrid star conceded only two goals throughout the tournament.
Why is the adidas Golden Glove award so important?
Iker Casillas: Well, for me to have won the adidas Golden Glove in the last World Cup in South Africa personally means a trophy that I hold very dearly because it was a different World Cup. At a personal level it was complicated, especially because of the form I d had at my club. Things had not gone so well: it probably had not been my best season but it had not been bad either. A lot was required of me though in the last World Cup. Fortunately I could focus on my job, I just did my job, which meant training and to do my best during the matches. We were rewarded with winning the World Cup and on top of that I was rewarded with winning the Adidas Golden Glove.
Tell me about the other Golden award winners, Forlan and M?ller?
IC: Well, I think these are awards that will always be remembered. People will always remember that Spain won the World Cup, that ForlÁn, MÜller or Casillas won an award at individual level. It is a matter of appraising the development of a player in the last stage of the World Cup. I think that s the most important thin that four or five World Cups from now, the names will still be there.
Tell me about your memory of playing in the World Cup?
IC: Yes, very happy, really. Not only because of my performance on the pitch but, at a personal level. Moments that will stay in my memory are all of them. I perhaps remember much more our first match against Switzerland, which we didn t win. A lot was said about the Spanish team, there were many hopes put on this team for this FIFA World Cup. But those days there, the bit that people didn t see: the living together, being in the dining room day after day, the training. It is not easy to be with your team for 50 days without any friction or clashes between teammates and it says a lot about the good feeling within the team.
What has JosÉ Mourinho brought to the club that wasn t there befote?
IC: What has he brought? I don t know what he s brought, to be honest. I can t explain. The truth is that there is a different feeling in the changing room. There are a lot of new players, very young, the team is a lot younger. There is a lot of ambition, an eagerness to do things well, the guys are eager to make their name at European level. There are people who have been a lot longer at Real Madrid and we know what the club values are, and there is a good mix with the new people. I don t know how far we ll go. We are going to try and do our best, match after match. That is our objective, not to think about the Wembley final but about our next match in the Champions League.
Barcelona Real Madrid... they re not the only two teams are they?
IC: Well, that s what happened last season. The only two games we lost were against Barcelona and we suffered for that. If we d gotten a better result in those games we could have won La Liga. I think this year we are going to see a surprise team. Like Hercules was, but I mean teams such as Villarreal, Sevilla, AtlÉtico de Madrid. Beating them is going to be difficult and I think this year is not going to be as comfortable as last eague.
Could any other team apart from Spain win the Euros in 2012?
IC: Well, any team could be a surprise. I like Germany a lot. At the last World Cup Germany were my favourites. They are European rivals, they are young, they ve got great players. I think they are going to set the standard for football at international level in a couple of years, when Spain are probably not up there at the top. The only team I am scared of and I ve got respect for is Germany.
Thomas Mueller
Thomas MÜller of Germany collected the adidas Golden Boot for the top scorer of the FIFA World Cup™. MÜller netted five goals the same number as Diego ForlÁn of Uruguay, David Villa of Spain and Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands but thanks to three assits , MÜller claimed the trophy. The Bayern Munich player follows in the footsteps of countryman and namesake Gerd MÜller who scored ten goals at the 1970 FIFA tournament in Mexico.
Gerd MÜller, Gabriel Batistuta, Pele all past winners of the award, Tell me about what that feels like
Thomas Mueller: I think it s a bit unbelievable although I am actually very laid-back and don t let myself get worked up by much, you could say somewhat proud, yes, it s a rare thing in my life but I think, yes, the Golden Boot is something special and just the players who have already won it, to join their ranks and at a young age too, yes I am proud of it, I have to say.
How important are these awards for players?
TM: I think you go into a tournament to win the World Cup and you don t think about somehow getting a personal trophy as a player but then it happens, it comes with it, and maybe you then think about it in the quarter-final or however long the tournament lasts that there s a chance of getting the thing, I even sat in the plane on the flight home nervous that Villa would score a goal or Sneijder because, yes, I knew I was in the lead and of course you want to have the Golden Boot then. So I think at the beginning of a tournament the team title is the most important thing and then at the end when you see that it s possible then of course you try to get the title personally as well.
Do you think that the German public expected a young team to do as well as you did, or did they want more from you?
TM: I think there was a kind of uncertainty in Germany, nobody knew what was going to happen, especially because of the young team, some people said, yes, it s good what the national coach is doing, others said nothing will come of it, they re too young, and then right from the first game - yes - we just thrilled our country, our home, but what was much nicer was that the whole world said positive things about German football and that s fairly rarely been the case, of course Germany has already had a lot of success in the past but it never became the beautiful game or there was never praise about Germany s lively playing and that was the greatest recognition, the whole world saying that Germany s playing super football.
How difficult is it to get to a Champions League Final two years in a row and are you on track?
TM: I think it s very difficult to get there but we ll find out this year, last year everything went kind of automatically and then somehow we were in the final but this year the expectation will be greater for us than last year and, yes, we ll have to see that we get to the last 16, survive it well, then it s always crucial from day to day and a question of luck a little bit as well and, at the crucial moments the players decide whether they re getting the goal or not. Champions League I think is very high-level and seconds and maybe even fractions of seconds are crucial and that ll be the concern and always a bit of luck.
Outside of Bayern Munich which teams are ones to watch in the Champions League?
TM: Of course you have to mention FC Barcelona, they have super individual players with Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and yes, you can name lots there, they have a good coach who keeps the team together and has good tactics and they have been playing together a long time already, know each other in and out and so I think Barcelona is very dangerous.
