Rumours have been spreading around Whitehall that former England captain, David Beckham, could be about to become knighted in Queen Elizabeth's New Year's honours list. If the 31 year old former England star does get knighted, it would mean his wife, Victoria, will be known as Lady Victoria, and the man himself will be known as Sir David Beckham.

June 9th. 6.05pm local time. The first match of the 2006 World Cup is underway. German full back, Philipp Lahm finds the ball down the left flank. He cut inside and releases a stunning right footed effort into the top right corner of the Costa Rican goal. The World suddenly woke up. The World Cup had started.

Italy have won the 2006 World Cup final in Germany, on a penalty shootout. The final score after extra time was 1-1, Zidane putting France ahead early on with a penalty, before Materazzi equalised for the Italians a short time later. The Italian full back, Fabio Grosso scored the all important penalty which means Italy have won the World Cup for the fourth time. The career of Zinedine Zidane, unfortunately ended in disgrace. In injury time, in his last ever football match, he was given a red card for an outrageous head butt on Marco Materazzi. This is a sad way for such a magnificent player to end his career. France were overall the better side, and penalties is the cruellest way to lose in the World Cup final. But for now, the World Cup belongs to Italy, which is an outstanding achievement, bearing in mind the state of football in their home country.

Host nation Germany have the consolation of winning the third place play off match against Portugal. This is, of course, in addition to the consolation of Lukas Podolski being named young player of the tournament, and the consolation of Miroslav Klose almost certainly winning the golden boot. The night belongs to the young German, Bastian Schweinsteiger. His bold second half performance resulted in two stunning goals by the German left winger, and a sizzling free kick which led to Germany’s other goal. Portugal made a game of it, and scored a consolation goal late on, in the consolation match!

A penalty from Zinedine Zidane was enough to send France into the world cup final, and leave Portugal to slug it out against Germany in the third place play off match. Unlike yesterdays semi final, this match was far from engrossing, with neither side playing the game at a particularly high tempo. Zinedine Zidane will now play his last ever competitive football match in the world cup final, which is a fitting end to a magnificent career of a magnificent player. This defeat for Portugal also ends manager Scolari’s impressive run of 12 consecutive wins in World Cup matches.

Germany have been sent crashing out of the World Cup on their own turf by Italy in arguably the best match of the tournament so far, and fully worthy of a semi final. Both sides gave everything, but Italy left it incredibly late to score two goals in the last two minutes to send them into the final. The match on the whole was very open, and the nature of Germany’s exit is incredibly dramatic and seemingly harsh. It’s hard to pick out any players as having a bad game, pretty much everyone on the pitch played their part to the best of their ability. Full back Fabio Grosso and Allesandro Del Piero were the two scorers for Italy, in what was an incredible battle of two of the best footballing nations in the world.

There were no empty spaces in the stands, but there were plenty on the pitch, in a game which saw more sendings off than goals. Plus there was the small matter of a disallowed goal, an own goal, some excellent saves and an enraged coach, in a game that can be best described as mayhem! With all the chaos going on, its was hard to see who the better team was, but at the end of the day, the Americans will be a lot happier with their point than their Italian opponents, in a result which leaves Group E wide open.

Ghana have managed to beat the Czech Republic in quite possibly the biggest shock of the tournament so far. The Czech Republic, who are ranked second in the world, had a number of shots, but in the end were unable to find the final ball. They scored once, just after half time, but it was disallowed for offisde. However, the day truly belonged to the Ghanaians. Despite a missed penalty, goals from Amasoah Gyan and Sulley Mantari were enough to give them their first ever World Cup victory in their first ever World Cup.

Portugal are through to the second round of the World Cup for the first time since 1966 as they comfortably beat Iran 2-0. This result also ensures that Iran won’t be going through to the last 16. A wonderful long ranged strike from Deco and a well placed penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo were enough to give Portugal their second consecutive win in the tournament, and their coach Luis Felipe Scolari his ninth consecutive win in the World Cup, having guided Brazil to victory in all of their seven games in 2002.

Serbia and Montenegro were on the receiveing end of a humiliating defeat to Argentina, who looked nothing short of outstanding. Argentina's display was almost pure perfection from start to finish, and they were the better team by a mile, as the scoreline suggests. 3 goals either side of half time were enough to seal an emphatic victory for the South American giants, who have sent out a huge warning to the rest of the world that they mean business! The goals came courtesy of Maxi Rodriguez (x2), Estebian Cambiasso, Hernan Crespo, Carlos Tevez and Lionel Messi.