GAME CHANGERS: The greatest sporting show in the world is a day away from climax. It’s been a topsy-turvy World Cup. From Rooney to Ronaldo, and Italy to Brazil, many of the superstars and superpowers of football have failed to fire. But that hasn’t taken anything away
from the excitement of the game. New stars have been created, and two of the great footballing nations never to have won the Cup — Spain and Holland — will finally have their shot at glory. TOI-Crest asked India’s best-known footballer Baichung Bhutia to choose his player of the Cup. And our own team of writers and analysts have stuck their necks out and chosen their World XI (we’ll be surprised if you agree with every one of our choices — we had raging debates and disagreements internally even as
we tried to forge some kind of consensus). Finally, what does this Cup mean for the future of football? Our football editor Siddharth Saxena, who’s been in South Africa for the past month, brings us a sense of what lies ahead