Well I was busy this weekend, but managed to catch the finals. I did miss the 3rd place game though. Speaking of which, with Muller back, I had no doubt that Germany would win, and they did. However, looking over the final score it was not as handily as I thought it would have been. Since I didn't watch it I really can't comment on it more than that.
I wasn't able to write my after action summary from the game yesterday due to being slightly inebriated, and managing to continue to have a great time after the game was over. Yes, I was rooting for the Netherlands, but I was happy with either team winning. That said though, as a soccer player and fan, I wasn't particularly happy with the way Spain one that game. I'll explain why in a bit.
First off, both teams started playing the first half pretty much as I predicted except a bit rougher. Which is to be expected with two hungry teams in the final match. They would be trying to give it their all which leads to over enthusiasm which in turn leads to fouls.
Spain played their short pass, control game in the mid field for pretty much the entire first half. They did not deviate from their typical strategy all world cup. The Netherlands played again scrappy ball. The Dutch were lunging all over the place which lead to many unfortunate plays such as the cleat attack against Spain. Spain countered with it own fouls though by quick movements to steal the ball, but had more than a few penalties from late hits. I could already tell from the yellow cards already given out by the end of the first half it would only get worse. Beyond the fouls and the flops, the first half was pretty boring to watch. With Spain content to control the ball, neither side attacked much.
The second half was a completely different game from the first. About 10 minutes in, Spain decided to go on the offensive and there they stayed. They opened up the playing field and decided to drive in attack after attack. But as I said before, and Spain proved only too true they can not shoot! They had shot after shot, chance after chance, but everything missed or went wide. They are terrible at making shots. But that never seemed to deter them as they kept at it.
Counter-point to the Spanish, the Dutch were not sitting back idle and letting Spain have their complete way with them. Also as I said before, the Dutch have a scrappy lunging play style with some lucky touches that manage to move the ball up the field. It never looks like what a Dutch player did was completely planned, such as the header pass back to the goalie off the back of a defender's head that wasn't paying attention. Still they managed to also aggressively attack the Spaniards. It was an attacking fest by both teams, but in my eye's Spain had the better plays to move the ball up the field. They also pulled the trigger on shots more often. Netherlands was able to shoot some great shots, but often their forward attacks were thwarted by crappy offensive decisions. Such decisions were the dumbass ideas of "let me dribble again" Robben with three defenders directly in front of him.
Another often common thing I saw for the Dutch offense was the lack of anyone there for support. Very few players making runs to lanes, crashing the goal, or even following their passes with a run to the open field. As before with every Netherlands game I've watched in this World Cup, I cringed at the terrible play strategy by the players. Even still, they managed to always get a lucky foot or body in the way to stop their opponents from scoring and move the ball back up the field via long balls usually.
As the second half progressed it was easy to see both teams get more determined to score. Even more fouls were committed and many were not from incidental contact. Some players, *cough Iniesta cough*, did some egregious fouls after the fact with what looked like punches to the other team players after the ball have moved on. One such foul was caught, but many I saw were not. Typically if a foul like this is seen, it is awarded a red card. The fouls were committed when the ref had his back turn and only one was given to Iniesta as a yellow. He should have been ejected early on and this would come back to haunt the dutch. This lead to a mounting tension and anger by all players on the field. The lack of a score from both teams despite best efforts and the many intentional fouls by both teams led to a complete break down in play. Even the Spanish started resorting to long ball passes which is very rare for them to do.
I saw that the Spanish however were committing more fouls and flops and getting away with them than the Netherlands. Not that the Dutch are completely innocent, but to me it felt that the calling by the ref was a bit more biased towards Spain's favor. This wasn't helped, and most likely exacerbated, by the mouthing off of the Netherland players to the ref. The head ref didn't take to kindly to the talking back by the Netherland players and was awarding yellow cards like candy on Halloween. Not that the Dutch didn't have a reason to mouth of. Despite Robben's flops in the game, he had a clear breakaway 1 on 1 in the box and Puyol held him back while falling to prevent Robben from taking the shot before the goalie could get there. This should have easily been a PK but it was not. Robben, in true fashion for himself, whined in the ref's face to get himself a yellow card over the issue. The Dutch defense held up to the onslaught of the Spanish attack but only just barely. Again, their defense didn't look all that great, but with lucky slides and lunges to get a body part in the way at the last moment, they managed to save themselves from several close calls.
I could see the clear frustration in the faces of every player which led to many "dick" moves in the last 15 minutes of the second half. Punting the ball away after a whistle is blown on a foul, or punting the ball after an injury toss such as when Torres pulled something in his leg and the Spanish keeper toss the ball out of bounds to stop play. Typically the gentleman thing to do for the Dutch after the other team sends the ball out of bounds to stop the play is to give them back control of the ball. They did, but only after sending it flying as far out of bounds as they could. The gentleman sportsmanship could no longer be found in this game. I was half expecting a brawl to break out at any moment. Such were the tensions of both teams. Both teams had some beautiful attempts from corner kicks to make a goal with a backside player. Both teams had that player whiff in grand fashion with a ball in the perfect place and an open goal in front of them. Also on two more corner kicks, both teams had a player in excellent position to make a header into the goal. Again though, both players in grand fashion do the stupid thing of taking their eyes off the ball when the header came! They tucked down their heads and used the top off their heads to try for a goal. This is as stupid as stupid gets. Sure by angling to use the top of your head, you get much more power from the header and it is harder to stop, but you lose all control while heading! Typically the ball will sail wide of the goal as it happened here in both cases by Aamos and Bommel. All I can say was sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. The end of the second half became that by both teams. Sloppy.
The second half ended with goose eggs on the score board, and over time started. Both teams were tired now and could be seen. Once quick movements to the ball or to chase down a slightly bad pass were no longer there. Lethargy set in with players starting to jog when they should be sprinting, and walk when they should be jogging. Spain was still making occasional good attacks as they were finding reserves of energy to try and press attacks. No amount of attacking from Spain at this point could change the fact that they can't shoot for anything. The boys in Orange weren't faring much better. They were making accurate on goal shots, but doing it from 30 yards or more out from the goal. It looked like the Dutch could only halfheartedly make an attack on the Spanish goal.
About the 110 minute mark, Spain started to a string of several lucky breaks by bad calls from the ref. First, Iniesta flops at the top of the box to give a Netherlands player his second yellow card for a red. This puts the Dutch down a man. Next, the dutch get a free kick following that call on a counter attack where Robben was fouled and it was called in front of Spain's goal. Sneijder went to shoot the direct free kick and just missed his shot. Instead the shot was deflected by the wall of Spanish players and went straight out of bounds. This should have been a corner kick for the Dutch as it was clearly evident to EVERYONE that the ball went out of bounds after being deflected by the wall. Maybe all three refs blinked in unison and missed it. I can not even begin to fathom how they completely blew this call, but the head ref ruled it was sent out by the Dutch and gave Spain the ball in the form of a goal kick. Obviously the Dutch were a bit pissed about this, and Spain used this moment to make one last glorious attempt to push the ball up field.
I will say it now, the run to score by Spain was a great play. The Dutch were caught flat footed and Spain capitalized. Iniesta, yes the cheating bastard, scored a beautiful goal at the 116 minute mark. There was some controversy about him being off-sides in the box when the pass made to him before he took his shot. Looking at the replay personally, it was too close to tell. He may have been a few inches off-sides but it would have been a damn hard call to make. Of course, the Dutch literally blow up over this and garner a few more yellow cards. Not that it mattered at this point. Despite valiant efforts, the boys in Orange, went out with a whimper. Not enough time left on the clock and not really enough energy to make an equalizing goal against a team that is going to switch back to keeping control of the ball to drag out the time. I do feel they were robbed. It should have been 0 to 0 at the end of overtime. It should have been an outcome decided by penalty kicks. Instead, the game was decided at the end by poor officiating. Such has been the legacy of this World Cup.
While I picked them for the winners of this game, the method of the actual win left a sour taste in my mouth. It was not a win from hard work, skill, and the accomplishment of being better than the other team. It was a win of several cheating flops by Iniesta and Xavi at the end followed by blown calls by the refs. Neither team was better than the other and the outcome could have gone either way at any time. The following is my obligatory statement.
Congrats Spain!
You did not earn it.