Germany

BERLIN - Germany's World Cup winner Lukas Podolski has long dazzled crowds with his power and speed but he left fans at a charity match on Sunday speechless when he was sent off for dissent.

The 37-year-old former Bayern Munich and Arsenal forward, who now plays for Poland's Górnik Zabrze, was given his marching orders after he brought down an opponent in the indoor arena at Gummersbach during a charity match under his auspices.

He got up and walked to the referee, speaking to him and then coming face-to-face as he kept addressing him.

Assists are often overlooked in favor of their more flashy and prominent neighbor, the goal. In many ways, they require more technique and ability than scoring a goal because finding the goal is easy. Knowing where to place a ball to find a teammate while avoiding defenders and keepers, and actually having the technical ability to do it, requires a soccer mind of the highest order. One of the greats, Andrea Pirlo, famously said, "Football is played with the head. Your feet are just tools."

The lasting memories of World Cups should be the celebrations of football — the glorious goals, the mesmerizing skills, the feel-good stories. But we also know that there's no joy without suffering and no winners without losers, and sometimes, it's those dramatic failures that really resonate because life's a snitch and then you die. 

Some of this is completely unfair to players who've given us so much over the years and to young guys who've got a lot of ball left to play, but these are the 10 individuals who really let me down in Qatar.