Here are a few of our thoughts. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome.
Goldman Sachs – Brazil
Always the favourites. Enormously talented. But a tendency to concentrate on attack at the expense of their defence.
Morgan Stanley – France
A former great, still a force to be reckoned with, but they keep bringing back old players
UBS – Germany
Formerly thought of as staid, dull and predictable, but has recently developed a bit of panache
Deutsche Bank – Holland
Lots of flair and great players. But you feel they could blow up at any moment
Citigroup – Argentina
Flair with a long history of quality but frequently guilty of dodgy play
Bank of America –South Korea
Foreign excursions prove they only come good on home soil
Lehman Brothers –Portugal
Unheard of 15 years ago but now serious contenders
Merrill Lynch – Italy
Great in the 1990s; went through a blip at turn of the century, but seem to be getting better again
RBS – USA
Lots of the best talent seems to seek better compensation in other sports
Barclays Capital –England
Imported foreign coach on a multi-million pound salary
Ixis CIB –Trinidad & Tobago
What on earth are they doing there?
Any of the major French banks – Mexico
Frequently play an attractive game, but never quite make it on the biggest stage
HSBC – Spain
Always disappoint; never quite the sum of their component parts
JPMorgan –Russia (failed to qualify)
Traditional superpower struggling to come to terms with its new circumstances
Dresdner Kleinwort – Greece (failed to qualify)
Flash in the pan – good for a while but where are they now?