I can remember the weekend of the final vividly! Was a few days before i set off to germany for the summer, and the weather was awesome cos 15mins before tickstart I ran to my local off license to stock up on guinness (I have a photographic memory for anything I've done asc-related in my life).
One of the main things that ruined that final (I recall ranting about it a lot pre-tickstart, much to ppls' annoyance) was that jer overdid the politics, vastly. The tournament was over in 60minutes or so. But then I don't get why people, who are already favourites, go out of their way to guarantee an easy win (so yes, r23 exilition
I had a few rants there too). Don't understand the mentality behind it, in a game like this [= main reason i totally suck at pa probably].
Sadly, I can imagine any world cup would feature similar politics going on - though could of course backfire during the game.
Oh, also, if it was in the winter + how you described, I wouldn't mind betting that there'd be a lot more galaxies than that. eg, I'd probably make a "noob" one - no hope of winning, but maybe qualifying for bronze finals and such.