Our initial thoughts were what the hell those boys at FIFA were smoking, but then we realised this is FIFA we’re dealing with.
Images did the rounds on Tuesday afternoon claiming to have been the ‘Official’ FIFA Team of the Tournament. With no confirmation of such on FIFA’s official website or on their Twitter account, it seems to have been nothing more than a piss take.
In fairness, whoever is behind it did a brilliant job of pulling the wool over all of our eyes, until they thrown it all away by naming Brazil’s worst player Paulinho in midfield.
They nearly had us up until then.
Nearly because there were a number of frankly outrageous inclusions in this Dream XI. From Dejan Lovren to Ashley Young, we were sceptical by the time we’d left the back four.
And if you don’t fall off your chair by the time you make it to midfield then you obviously didn’t watch much of the World Cup over the last few weeks.
It says a lot about FIFA’s bonkers organisation that we actually believed they had contrived to such an outrageous string of calls.
It started off with Hugo Lloris in the nets. That’s a dubious enough call considering the Spurs man committed the howler of all howlers in the World Cup final but we hadn’t given up hope yet.
Then they put England’s Ashley Young in the left back position. This is a man who was barely worth his place on Gareth Southgate’s team while Lucas Hernandez was bossing it for France all the way to World Cup glory.
Dejan Lovren’s inclusion at centre back raised eyebrows again because surely Samuel Umtitti warrants a place here ahead of the Croatian.
This is FIFA we’re dealing with, we told ourselves.
But then, we were pushed over the edge.
Paulinho, by this writer’s estimation was Brazil’s worst player of the tournament. He has a first touch heavier than lead and he loses possession more time than he gets it.
Thanks Paulinho for confirming our suspicions.
And with Neymar getting the nod up top, we realised the creators were laughing at us.
Gianni Infantino would have had a lot to answer for…
Here’s what our team of the tournament at SportsJOE looked like.
