There's nothing FIFA likes better than a big, cheesy, slightly pointless awards ceremony. So I thought I'd do the same. (Albeit without the women in kimonos, thunderously bad Europop, phallic balloons and whatnot.)

Best Player
Deco. He scored a great goal for Barcelona in the semi-final, came thisclose to scoring another one in the final, and was always vital to the team's passing and movement. This is one case where I think FIFA actually got it right. Although Deco looked thoroughly unimpressed when they gave him his prize, which consisted of a big gold key and a Toyota Prius. (Who needs a Hummer or a Bentley when you can drive a Prius, eh?)

Best Game
The semi-final between Barcelona and Club America. Maybe not the best if you wanted to see a close contest between two evenly matched teams, but for the sheer entertainment value provided by watching Barcelona open a giant can of whoop-ass on the hapless Mexicans? Oh yeah.

Best Fans
The Internacional supporters, who were consistently the loudest group at any of the matches. (And also the most intoxicated. Coincidence?) They even sang and yelled through the entire Club America-Al Ahly match yesterday, when 90% of the stadium was off lining up for food and buying replica Ronaldinho shirts.

Best Venue
Yokohama. Despite the hassle involved in actually getting to the stadium, this was by far the best place to watch a game. No running track around the stadium, proper toilets (yes, this is important to me) and even some not-half-bad food, if you like fried things with cheese, which as it happens I do.

Miss Congeniality
Auckland City FC, for being the friendliest team to talk to in the post-game mixed zone. Possibly this is just because they were the only ones who actually spoke the same language as I do, but nevertheless: nice guys, those Kiwis.

Worst Outfits
The white sweatsuits that Jeonbuk Motors wore for their warmups, which made them look like refugees from a 1970s gym class.

Bad Hair of the Tournament
(Awarded on a team basis, since I did the individual ones before.) This one has to go to Barcelona. I've already discussed the wonder of Ronaldinho and his girly headband, but on top of that you've got Puyol's misguided attempt to look like the drummer from Def Leppard, Marquez's Mexican gangster ponytail, Thiago Motta's greaseball 'fro, Eidur Gudjohnsen's albino comb-forward... it's no contest, really.

Runner-up: Club America. The underdogs made a valiant effort, but really it was just your standard Latin America bad hair rather than anything truly extraordinary.

Most Pleasant SurpriseThe relatively low number of yellow cards handed out (and not a single red!). Unlike the World Cup, where it seemed like every tackle was a foul, or every foul was a booking.

Most Annoying Thing
The way that they cut away from replays of any of the fouls on the stadium screens. I know they don't want to incite the fans by showing replays of controversial incidents, but these fans are so placid I don't think they'd be incited by a whole army of Gary Nevilles making obscene gestures at them.

Runner-up: FIFA's appalling mapmaking skills, which meant that finding the media centre at any given stadium was usually the biggest challenge of the day. I guess they figured that if you could do that, you were qualified to cover the match. But come on, how hard is it to draw the maps so that north is up?

This year may have been Auckland City FC's first experience with the FIFA Club World Cup, but they're hoping that it won't be their last. I spoke to some of the players and coaches after their final game, and they all agreed that they had really enjoyed the tournament.

Midfielder Paul Seaman felt that the team had played better in their game against Jeonbuk than in the first match against Al Ahly, and they were unfortunate not to have scored at least once. "The luck went against us," he said. "We gave up two easy goals. We need to organize better at the back."

Still, he was happy with the team's performance overall, after the effort that they had put in leading up to the tournament. "We worked hard to prepare, but there were some things that were out of our control, like changing coaches."

One thing that was in his control was that missed chance 10 minutes into the second half, and Seaman was still kicking himself about it after the game. "I couldn't believe I missed that!" he said. "It would have been easier to have scored than missed. I just took my eye off the ball."

Seaman is a youth football coach when he's not playing, and he said that was exactly the sort of thing he'd tell his players not to do. Unfortunately, though, he won't get a chance to pick up any coaching tips from watching the final between Barcelona and Internacional on Sunday, because the Auckland team was flying home on Sunday -- back to their day jobs, presumably.

Assistant coach Paul Marshall said that with Australia moving to the Asian Football Confederation, leaving an easier path to the Club World Cup for the other teams in Oceania, it will have an impact on football not just in New Zealand but in other countries as well.

"Developing nations see that they've got an opportunity to compete on this stage, and it's the second biggest tournament in the world," Marshall said. "It's a great initiative by FIFA."

The team is hoping to come back to the tournament next year, but they expect to face some stiff competition from the other teams in the New Zealand league. "There are one or two teams that we know will be trying to qualify," Marshall said.

It's possible that they could try to strengthen the team by signing more players like former Japanese international Teruo Iwamoto, who's been a big hit with the fans here.

Assistant coach Craig Alexander praised Iwamoto's contribution to the team. "Teru brings assurity and calmness to our game. He allows the team to play better possession football, because he's got such a range of passing. We try to take the sting out of the game, so that he can present what he can do."

Alexander echoed Seaman and Marshall in the hope that Auckland will be returning to the Club World Cup next year. "We may be amateurs," he said. "But we're also quick learners."

So far, the World Club Cup has gone exactly the way you would have expected. All the higher-ranked teams have beaten their opponents, and it's going to be the favourites Barcelona and Internacional in the final, while Auckland and Jeonbuk duke it out for fifth place tonight.

I'm sure that's good news for the marketing and ticket people, who want to see the big names go as far as possible, but for a neutral observer, it's a little bit disappointing. How great would it have been to see one of the heavy hitters stumble, or the minnows pull out a win? It's the unpredicability of football that makes it great, after all.

A few lingering questions from yesterday's match:

1. Why do they play Seven Nation Army at halftime in all the games? The wise and wonderful Google tells me that it was apparently a popular chant with the Italian fans during the World Cup...but that doesn't answer the question of why FIFA has picked up on it. Anyone?

2. Why was Al Ahly keeper Essam El Hadary wearing long pants but short sleeves? I'm pretty sure he's got it backwards. (I should note here that he also went down with what looked like cramp in the 80th minute and had to be substituted. His replacement had proper shorts on; draw your own conclusions.)

3. What's up with the strange combination of food at the stalls around the stadium? Last night they were selling everything from nigiri to corn dogs.

4. Why wasn't Renteria even on the teamsheet for Internacional? After I went to all that effort on Youtube the other day! (Oh, never mind: I just looked it up and turns out he got knocked out with an ankle injury at the beginning of the month. No word on whether the injury was in any way related to his goal celebration.)

5. How long before Pato picks himself up an endorsement deal, a rumoured trade to Barcelona, and a WAG (not necessarily in that order)?

One game down, six games to go. Our other bloggers have already done a great job of covering what happened in the game between Auckland City and Al Ahly, so instead, some of the things that have stood out for me so far...

Best post-game comment:
"For a small man, he's quite good in the air." -- Auckland coach Allan Jones on Al Ahly's Flavio. (You can all tick off that square on your Press Conference Bingo card now.)

Best nickname:
Jeonbuk's S. J. Jung, who is apparently known as the "eye of the typhoon."

Best backhanded compliment:
"Former substitute grabbed a regular starting role when the team was beset by injury. Contributes to the defence." -- from the media guide profile of Internacional's Wellington Monteiro

Best hair (day 1):
Auckland fullback Jason Hayne, who looks like he dipped a hedgehog in a vat of peroxide and then stuck it on his head. (Look him up on Google images if you don't believe me.)

You'll notice that I didn't mention the actual game there as one of the highlights. That's because it...wasn't. Auckland certainly gave it a go, but they were what one usually refers to as "limited," and Al Ahly seemed to play down to their level. It was 90 minutes of back-and-forth in the middle of the pitch, because as soon as either side got near the other team's penalty area, they seemed to forget how to play football. Either that, or the player with the ball would beat a couple of defenders, have a sudden rush of blood to the head and then try a back-heel to nobody. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm hoping for a better standard of play from tonight's game between Jeonbuk Motors and Club America. Or failing that, that we get to the media centre before they're all out of Coke again.