When Euromoney's journalists were able to do a bit of work between World Cup matches in June, football was never far from our minds. And so it was, as we decided this year's winners of the awards for excellence, that we hit upon a related idea: if investment banks were countries in the World Cup, which would they be?

Brazil - Goldman Sachs
Always the favourites. Enormously talented. But a tendency to concentrate on attack at the expense of their defence.

France - Morgan Stanley
A former great, still a force to be reckoned with, but keep bringing back old players

Germany - UBS
Formerly thought of as staid, dull and predictable but recently developing a bit of panache

Netherlands - Deutsche Bank
Lots of flair, great players, but you feel they could blow up at any moment

Argentina - Citigroup
Flair with a long history of quality but frequently guilty of dodgy play

South Korea - Bank of America
Foreign excursions prove they are only good on home soil

Portugal - Lehman Brothers
Unheard of 15 years ago but now serious contenders

Italy - Merrill Lynch
Great in the 1990s; went through a blip at turn of the century but seem to be getting better again

USA - RBS
Lots of the best talent seems to seek better compensation in other sports

England - Barclays Capital
Imported foreign coach on a multi-million pound salary

Trinidad & Tobago - Ixis CIB
What on earth are they doing there?

Mexico - any of the major French banks
Frequently play an attractive game but never quite make it on the biggest stage

Spain - HSBC
Always disappoint; never quite the sum of their component parts

Russia (failed to qualify) - JP Morgan
Traditional superpower struggling to come to terms with its new circumstances

Greece (failed to qualify) - Dresdner Kleinwort Flash in the pan - good for a while but where are they now?


SE1972Jun 30, 2006 @ 16:47