Matchday 25 - Total Atrocity

Netherlands 0 - Spain 1 (after extra time)

Spain become the eigth nation to be crowned football champions of the world following a 1-0 win over the Netherlands in the 2010 World Cup Final. But the match will be remember for the dispicable play of the Dutch who resorted to cynical fouling to contain the Spanish, turning the game into a farce in the process.

Let’s not beat around the bush. This was an absolutely disgraceful game of football, especially for what should be the ultimate showcase on the world stage. The game was wrecked by the negativity of the Dutch, who combined their pragmatic defensive game style with endless cynical fouls on the attacking Spaniard players. Combine this with the Spanish ‘tic-tac’ system that involves endless passing with limited attacking thrusts and the result was a dire 0-0 contest that was only awoken by Andres Iniesta’s 116th minute winner. The result was the right one, as Spain was the only team out there playing football. The Dutch were managed to evenly spread their yellow cards across their back six and survived until late into extra time before getting their first red. They could have had any number of players sent off before then had a harsher referee been in charge of the match. Still, the Dutch were not the only reason the game was dreary. As I said in a previous posting, I do not find the Spanish that exciting to watch for all the experts who gush praise on the technically brilliant passing game. For me, their domination of possession does not result in enough domination on the score sheet, and the final was just another example of that, the fourth straight game where they have dominated possession just to grind out a 1-0 result. Still, they deserve their title as World Champions having dominated international football for three years. The Dutch can hang their heads in shame at their performance – let’s hope they learn to play a more attractive brand of football over the next four years.

What We Learned – That for all of Spain’s domination in possession they still lack that killer ability up forward that would make them near unbeatable on the world stage (even though they almost are anyway). They do not make their control of the game count enough and I still feel Brazil would have troubled them had they not imploded against the Dutch. I would even back a more mature Germany side to beat them on their day.

The Falcon’s Spud of the Day – SBS (Australian broadcaster) – For my brief World Cup life the World Cup final has been synonymous with one broadcaster….Martin Tyler. But with Tyler commentating for ESPN in the US this year we have had limited access to the great man. SBS’s decision to go with David Bashear as his replacement though was ordinary – any other of the British commentators we have had at the tournament so far would have been superior. At least we had Fozzie to provide us with some glorious (or technically brilliant) special comments.