i don't want to have a whole debate on the ref here. i think de jong deserved a red and most of the yellows were rightly given.
i do think webb somewhat killed the game at some point, blowing the whistle for everything and even giving free-kicks (to both teams) when the team being fouled on kept the ball in possesion.

a second yellow for puyol? hmmm, robben kept on his feet, so probably not.
i do think iniesta made some awful theatre though. the second yellow for heitinga might have been up for debate, but right after that he clearly dived after no contact to give van der wiel a yellow.

spain didn't start dishing out until after 20 minutes indeed, but they were willing to go down easily before that. holland were getting away with a lot of fouls in the first 30 minutes, but then got quite a few soft calls for nothing against them in the second half.

but holland didn't lose because of the referee. spain were clearly the better team and holland made a lot of fouls to keep up with them.

hey pokkeherrie, nice posts.

if it's any consolation (or the contrary-- not sure anything can work), spain probably owes its victory to johan cruyff & the dutch team from 1974:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/sp...upfeature.html

there was another article, i cant' find it now, where the writer, alluding to this influence in spanish football, said something like "if i want spain to win, it's because i like dutch history so much" (or something of that sort).

no, that game was bullshit. spain got way more calls. they got way more free kicks in the 2nd half, when it mattered. i have no reason to root for the dutch, aside from spain being full of chodes. everyone i watched it with, people who regularly watch the premier league, felt the same way i did.

i understand you guys are fans of the game and want to try to remember it fondly. but the fact is that it was a shitty final to what was overall a shitty World Cup. the highlights being Uruguay with the great play of Suarez and Forlan. and almost every game that Germany played. [and I guess the US... even though the games were mostly ugly, they were very exciting]

Yeah, it wasn't a great final (when was the last time a WC final could be described as great?) and the football throughout the tournament wasn't always that brilliant, but World Cups aren't really about the best football (that's for the Champions League), they're about the drama that surrounds it and for that I'd say this one was a classic. It seems like an eternity since France re-enacted 1968 on their training pitch, or 'that' Robert Green miss, or Dempsey and Lampard's disallowed goals, or the first sight of that Korean player crying during his national anthem, or first finding out what a vuvuzela was, or seeing Domenich refuse to shake hands with the Paraguay coach, or John Terry's failed coup, or Suarez' handball - and yet they all happened within a single tournament within the space of a month. I honestly think that makes for a great World Cup.

I'm so glad the Spanish won the World cup and that Iniesta was the one who scored the decisive goal. The game itself was terrible ...i even fell asleep for 10 minutes during the 2nd half ... but I'm glad the Cup is in the right hands (sorry pokkeherrie, longtime Spain supporter speaking here)

too bad del Bosque didn't give enough chances to Jesus Navas, an overlooked gem in the spanish squad. he clearly didn't play too well in the first two spanish matched when he was placed in the starting 11, but i liked how the whole team started playing with more spirit when he came in yesterday.

everybody was kung fu fiiiiggghtttinnggg

The ref did seem to lean toward Spain which makes me suspect it was fixed.

we watched it on the marketplace here, and went to the tapas bar in my street afterwards.. the atmosphere was pretty nice, considering the huge amount of drunk disappointed dutch supporters in the city.

but the game was quite boring. i'm not too interested in the sport anyway so we spent most of the time watching people watching it.

some guy in an orange t-shirt was hitting on a very slutty looking girl and we were starting to hope for a dutch goal so he'd finally kiss her, but he ended up taking off the shirt and going home alone.

Twas the single most boring match of the entire world cup.

but it was a beautiful goal.

I have nothing to gauge it against as this was the first time I have watched a World Cup in it's entirety. I have watched the final game before but never the whole tournament. I definitely agree with Demonrail that all the subplots made it a great tournament. I enjoyed as much as any NCAA Final Four tournament in basketball. It was so great to watch a tournament where human error was involved no stinkin' instant replay. To see team (USA comes to mind) rise above those mistakes and press on and win was excellent. And when all was said and done the best team finally won. Casillas and that defense where nothing short of brilliant, their passing was excellent and when they lost the ball most of the time they had it back in under 5 seconds. Was Brazil even here this year? Also the announcing teams especially my main man Ian Darke where refreshing to listen to, unlike American Sports where it's the superstar first and foremost no matter what the rest of his team is doing. Anybody in there right mind knows that Pau Gasol was the MVP of the NBA championship except David Stern and his co-horts. That Chris Johnson of the Titans or Drew Brees were the MVP of the NFL not Peyton 'can't win the big one' Manning.

Yeah, seen it mentioned a lot. Blabla, Cruyff, Van Gaal, Rijkaard, Barcelona managers, yadda yadda... No, that doesn't help at all, sorry!


What does help is that Spain were better and had Holland won it, it would've been incredibly controversial because of their, uhm how to put it nicely, "physical approach". Nobody would've mentioned Italy 2006, Brazil 1994 or Germany 1990 as negative football anymore. Holland winning the 2010 World Cup final would've been the new example of ugly anti-football for decades to come.

Thanks for noticing. Last night, in the heat of the moment, I felt exactly the same thing. In the last hour Webb was giving nearly all the 50/50s to Spain, giving a couple of soft yellows to the Dutch while similar fouls and theatre from the Spanish went unnoticed.

But imo Holland can't blame the referee for their loss. They had surely used up all their credit in the first half. Van Bommel and De Jong could've been sent-off before half-time. The only reason the ref didn't, was probably because - as !@#$%! said - it's the final and that's supposed to be an entertaining game. I'm sure Webb was told by the FIFA before the match. The Dutch took full advantage of Webb's leniency in the first half, which wasn't pretty.

By the way, I just saw that Puyol-Robben challenge back and I might have to agree with you after all. If he had gone down as easily as Iniesta did again and again, then that probably should've been a 2nd yellow for Puyol, being the last man and all. It surely wasn't any less than Heitinga's 2nd booking on Iniesta. (oh well, I'll still be rooting for you in the CL, Andres!)

Once again I don't want to sound like a sour loser, so I can't stress this enough, Spain were the better team and well-deserved champions.

But I do have a bit of a problem with the imagery of "Beauty vs The Beast" that seemed to prevail in a lot of international media (BBC for instance) afterwards. Sure, the Dutch played it nasty, but Spain are really no saints indeed. As far as diving and complaining goes, they surely weren't outclassed by the Dutch. Remember they got opponents sent-off in their games vs Chile and Portugal too.

It might telling something that the winner of the golden ball went to a player whose team didn't reach the final.




It was a shitty final, yes, most definitely. But then I can't remember seeing a decent world cup final in my lifetime. I guess 2002 and 1998 were alright at least. Supposedly 1982 and 1986 were really good ones, but I'm not old enough to have seen either of those.

Despite Spain's tiki-taka being pleasing to the eye, they've only scored 8 goals, so I have to agree with Germany being the best team to watch (that's quite something coming from a Dutchman!). Always disappointed about their defensive style of football in the 90s/early 00s, now they are playing attractive attacking football that is a joy to watch. I hope Loew decides to stay and they keep that going. Their midfield with Mueller, Oezil and Schweinsteiger is amazing. It's a shame I really don't like the clinical but oh so boring Miroslav Klose ("let's have another header, shall we?"), but he probably won't last that long anymore anyway.

As for Holland, I hope we'll see a more skillful player (Van der Vaart?) in the role of defensive midfielder over De Jong, who could've been sent-off already in the first game against Denmark and who broke a USA player's leg in a friendly match this March.

Holland were slated by the UK media for their "Rollerball" approach to the final.

enough whining, time for fun!

Jimmy Jump trying to put a Catalan beenie on the trophy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNEHwP1iJDI

what's rollerball?

The ultra-violent sport of a dystopian future.

Jimmy Jump is a twat.

Ah, so they meant the Dutch were playing football ahead of their time, revolutionising the game once again?


I don't mind Jimmy Jump. Sure he's a big ego-kicker craving for media attention, but it keeps surprising me how he's managed to invade every big media/sports event in recent years, again and again.

fucking hilarious. that bruce lee kick was a high light moment..