The dust is settling, Madrid is quiet again (or as quiet as Madrid ever gets), Spain are world champions and Howard Webb will not be as warmly welcomed in Amsterdam as were the runners-up.
The final was, I thought, not an edifying spectacle. It was engrossing enough to lure Sarah, normally an avowed hater of football, to the other end of the sofa and controversial enough to have her shouting at the screen. Unfortunately the pessimists' predictions came true and it wasn't a match that will live long in the memory. So much for Total Football: it was tiki-taca against kickihacka.
The Dutch looked like traffic cones and approached the match with an appropriate sense of adventure: absolutely none. Their energies were spent not running up the field to score a goal, but kicking their opponents into next week. Combine that with the Spaniards' histrionics, falling over lightly and waving imaginary cards at the ref, and it's no wonder Howard Webb found the going tough.
British pundits seemed keen to praise the English referee, as though it would be somehow unpatriotic to criticise a man who'd achieved what 11 compatriots couldn't and gone all the way in the tournament. Personally I thought Webb had a pretty bad match. I understand he wanted to keep it 11 v 11 if at all possible, this being a showcase event, but on the biggest stage of all surely he should have been enforcing not undermining FIFA's directives on fair play. Van Bommel went through Iniesta with exactly the sort of uncontrolled tackle from behind that not so long ago the mandarins were calling to be banished from the game; yellow card. Would the Dutch have continued their tactical assault if the biggest culprit had been sent for a bath barely 20 minutes into the game? Maybe, but it couldn't have been any worse than how it unfolded once he let that one go.
On the infamous karate kick, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to De Jong because I'm not sure he saw Alonso and to Webb because he may have been unsighted. But I wish I didn't understand why Robben wasn't booked for kicking the ball away in extra time, two minutes before Xavi suffered exactly that fate. Unfortunately I know only too well: he already had a yellow card and Webb didn't want to send off anyone else. Ironic then that Heitinga was dismissed for an offence that Webb could reasonably have ignored. It was technically the correct decision because the defender briefly grabbed Iniesta but the Spaniard had every opportunity to play on and instead took the opportunity to fall over and "give the ref a decision to make". Ironic also that when Robben passed up the opportunity to do the same under Puyol's challenge, no advantage accrued. This is Robben who's like a Weeble in reverse: he may not wobble but he always falls down.
What was it, fourteen yellow cards? The Dutch fouled and whinged as they'd done through the tournament, the Spanish mostly just whinged. The pundits (understandably) lost all sense of impartiality in their post-match analysis. Suddenly Iniesta, who I'd barely heard mentioned all tournament, was their star player in the World Cup and FIFA's award of the Golden Ball for best player to Diego Forlan was derided. Almost as if they'd forgotten he almost single-handedly dragged a limited team to the semi-finals. Yep, they had, because he wasn't Spanish and hadn't played in the game they'd just watched.
When all is said and done, I'm glad Spain won the World Cup; all the more so when the immediate alternative was the Dutch thugs in a penalty shoot-out. In the tournament as a whole, except Spain's first game, attacking teams generally overcame defensive set-ups and it seemed fitting that the same eventually happened in the final. The BBC website, always an interesting barometer of British opinion, carried a spectrum of post-match views including a considerable number of fans who regarded the Spanish as boring. Eh? Yes, they scored only eight goals in the whole tournament and most of those late in games. To paraphrase Gary Lineker, "two teams play for 90 minutes and then the Spanish win 1-0". But should we expect them to win 10-0 against teams that (to repeat an already overused phrase) "park the bus" and lack the quality to threaten an equaliser? Spain were there to win the tournament and a single goal was usually enough to progress.
I enjoyed watching Spain play. This probably isn't as strong a team as that which won Euro '08 and the second holding midfielder looked unnecessary, but then they had to cope with a big gap where Torres should have been. They lack firepower especially when Villa plays up the middle, and a player capable of beating defenders with pace or dribbling skills. But I love the way they pass the ball: not 50-yard Hollywood passes like Beckham or Gerrard which as often as not go out of play or to an opponent; but back and forth making opponents work and opening a gap to advance. They play a dozen passes to no apparent effect, then suddenly the ball reaches Iniesta or Xavi 30 yards from goal and someone's running at an angle that the defenders can't easily deal with. Not only that, pretty much every single Spanish player can control the ball in one touch and pass it to a team-mate. When the first XI ran out of ideas, they had substitutes who offered something different. Maybe I'm just too used to lower-league English games and overwhelmed by the novelty of a team who can string five passes together and trust technical ability rather than raw effort. Those who follow the Premier League have higher standards (cough). Football doesn't have to be helter-skelter, just because that's the way English teams play it. Possession was nine-tenths of the law for Spain; for England it's one-tenth, the remainder being getting stuck in and slinging it in the box.
Probably the final would have been more fun with Germany in it. But there's a reason they weren't there: apart from a 20-minute spell in the first half of the semi-final they just couldn't get the ball off Spain. That invites a conclusion about which approach is superior. The Dutch beat a Suarez-less Uruguay more easily than the 3-2 scoreline might indicate, thanks in part to yet another jammy goal by Sneijder, and with some decent attacking football along the way. Apparently the third-placed match was a cracker; alas I missed it.
Overall, the World Cup was the usual mix of good games and fairly poor ones, with probably nary a classic. The standard of football wasn't that high, but in truth has it ever been? The last great final was nearly a generation ago: Argentina vs Germany in 1986. Just as the tournament will probably be best remembered for Suarez handling on the line and Gyan missing the penalty, the final will go down in history mainly for the utter cynicism of its participants. At least there was one rare moment of humanity when Iniesta, after scoring what proved to be the winning goal, revealed a tribute to his friend and fellow footballer Daniel Jarque, who died a year or two back aged 26. For just a few seconds the fierce rivalry between Barcelona and Espanyol was overlooked and a country united in hope. Then Webb yellow-carded Iniesta for taking off his shirt, we noticed the Dutch were berating the officials over a decision that hadn't gone their way in the lead-up to the goal, and normal service was resumed.
About a month from now, a new Premier League season will kick off and for the majority of English football followers, all the above will be just a footnote in history.
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