The World Cup 2010 Final: Holland vs Spain

1) Thank fuck that that's finished.

2) In one sense, I am glad that Holland didn't win after a performance of extraordinary spitefulness and cynicism. However, amidst the opprobrium that will be (rightly) hurled at the Dutch, I thought Spain were poor, creating little from open play until the game became stretched. Despite reading several reports that claim Spain created "many" chances, I thought that Holland had the best three (Robben's two, and Mathijsen) until Fabregas went through on goal. Overall, whilst no-one, not even me, can complain that Spain are the world champions, given that they have basically been beaten twice since the last World Cup (Northern Ireland and USA, if I remember correctly), they are by far the least inspiring that I have seen, and given that they were one of the most positive sides in this tournament, 2010 can't be remembered especially fondly.

3) Robben will probably forever be remembered for his miss on 62 minutes; the Dutch game-plan would have been completely justified had he scored there. Casillas was immense on both one-on-one chances, especially the first as he stayed on his feet for as long as possible, and deserved the lift the cup for this clutch moment.

4) I suppose Webb will end up being praised for his performance, in a way it reminded me of the Battle of Nuremberg that I linked to earlier in the blog; once he had started giving cards (and he did have to, Puyol, Van Bommel and especially De Jong all commited shocking challenges in the first half) it was obvious it would continue.

5) I suppose this match wasn't as bad as West Germany vs Argentina from 1990, and it may have been better than the 1994 final, which I didn't watch. However, it was an atrocious game. I suppose my final thoughts on this game and tournament before I come and wrap up with Player of the Whatever bullshit stuff, are that there are few things that annoy me more than people complaining about the quality of the World Cup as if they deserved a better spectacle. I always come from a position that we are lucky to be able to watch the World Cup at all; and it owes us nothing. Complaining about quality, or it being boring, is frankly absurd: Don't Fucking Watch It Then. Why is it that there are vast numbers of men who have failed to learn the following principle: All World Cups will disappoint you, except two: the first one you watched, and the first one you were old enough to drink excessively or take drugs?

Did I think this was a great World Cup? Of course I fucking didn't. Am I going to complain about it? No I'm fucking not. I've eaten a lot of grilled meat, and drank a lot of beer and wine. I've seen some good matches (fewer then ever before, I think, but there were some), some average matches (a lot of average matches, truth be told) and some shit matches. I finally got the fucking message with England. I occasionally wrote some good blog posts.

A shit World Cup is still a damn sight better than a good anything else.