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Home > Sports > Football Fiesta > World Cup history

2002 - Brazil high-five!

Brazil won a record fifth World Cup as Ronaldo erased the memory of his nightmare in the 1998 final by scoring both goals in a 2-0 victory over Germany in the final.

His goals settled the first ever World Cup match between the two most successful teams in the tournament's history.

The striker, who suffered a fit before Brazil's 3-0 defeat by France four years ago, was undoubtedly the player of the tournament, although his strike partner Rivaldo ran him close. He finished with eight goals in the tournament, the most at a finals since 1970, and equalled Pele's Brazilian record of 12 at World Cup finals.

Brazil became the first team since their 1970 side to win all their matches in the tournament. Uruguay, in 1930, and Italy, in 1938, are the only other teams to have accomplished the feat.

161 goals, at an average of 2.52 per game, were scored in the tournament, jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan.

Germany's Oliver Kahn was named best goalkeeper of the Cup. Before the final against Brazil, he had conceded just one goal in six matches.

Belgium won the Fair Play award.

But so much for statistics. New stars like Senegal's Khalilou Fadiga and El-Hadji Diouf, Japan's Junichi Inamoto, Turkey's Ilhan Mansiz and Hasan Sas and South Korean Ahn Jung-Hwan appeared even as the likes of Gabriel Batistuta, Paolo Maldini and Fernando Hierro announced their international retirements.

The tournament will also be remembered for the success of South Korea and Turkey who both reached the semi-finals for the first time. They then played out a thrilling third place play-off and sportingly congratulated each other and the Korean fans after Turkey's 3-2 victory.

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