Special World Cup 'Heroes & Villains'

The competition really starts now, with the last sixteen playing through in the knockout stage. This heroes and villains awards at this stage are as follows:

Pichichis: Ronaldo moves level with Klose at the top of the chart after he was awarded the first goal against Costa Rica and added another at the end of the game with Belgium. Rivaldo got his fourth of the championship in the same game, and Vieri also moves on to four after opening the scoring against South Korea. Vieri's participation ends here though, as does that of Tomasson. Morientes joins Raúl on three, and either could be in the running for the top scorer's prize at the end.

Zamoras: Our apologies for letting Goran Arsic loose on these pages last week. The keepers who kept clean sheets in the last round of group games were of course Lee Woon Jae (South Korea), Enyeama (Nigeria), Cevallos (Ecuador) and Narazaki (Japan). Rustu (Turkey), kept a clean sheet while he was on against China, but Omer replaced him before half time.

Kahn (Germany) and Seaman (England) both kept clean sheets in the last sixteen matches and head the keepers' table having only let in one goal each. Clean sheets as well for Friedel (USA), Marcos (Brazil) and Rustu (Turkey). Spain's own Iker Casillas must be the star of the round though, saving three penalties including two in the first sudden death shoot out of the competition.

Villains: Red cards for Toro Acuña (Paraguay), Márquez (Mexico) and Totti (Italy). Portugal's Joao Pinto is in big trouble after reportedly punching the referee in the stomach in the last group game against South Korea when shown the red card. Shades of Abel Xavier and company in the last tournament?

White stick award: Several controversial decisions by referees this week, which may or may not have affected the results. Senegal got over a rejected penalty appeal and a disallowed goal (Mr. Aquiño - Paraguay) to overcome Sweden, and Spain were a bit upset that Sweden's Mr. Frisk awarded two penalties against them and gave eight offside decisions in the first half. They survived though, which was not the case of three other teams. Mexico had a penalty appeal turned down by Portuguese referee Mr. Melo Pereira when the USA's O'Brien punched the ball clear in the area with the scores level, and Jamaica's Mr.Prendergast ruled out a perfectly good goal by Belgium against Brazil early on. Italy complained about Ecuadorian referee Mr. Moreno when he harshly sent off Totti supposedly for diving and then ruled out a golden goal by Tomassi for a non-existent offside against co-hosts South Korea. All three games could have had different outcomes if the referees had made the right decisions. It's all part of the game, we suppose.