So, at last it’s all over. Spain are worthy champions, the Netherlands are lucky to have finished the game with the amount of players they had left. In truth it was a shocking game, not one worthy of representing the end to the world’s premier sporting event.
Spain, for all their infuriating passing game (think Arsenal on steroids) at least tried to play football while Holland where happy to disrupt the Spanish flow by playing dirty cynical football that not only was difficult and unpleasant to watch, but which also changed many football purists opinions of a team that has been known for their flair and skill throughout the years.
Total Football was mortally wounded in 1974 and lingered long enough to survive until 1978, but by the time Holland re-emerged on the international stage in 1988 in that tremendous European Championship win it was quite dead. Dutch football, by this time mostly based around players who gained experience abroad, had reinvented itself as just another European nation playing decent attacking football, but the concept of a team in which every player could play in every position was no longer one which worked in the footballing world post-1978: players and managers had caught on to the idea and knew how to defend against it.
Holland’s route to yesterdays final was a relatively straightforward one. An easy World Cup qualifying campaign (featuring such heavyweights as Scotland, Iceland, Norway and Macedonia) did little to exercise the talent within the squad. Until they faced Brazil there was little to get excited about. Against Uruguay (and possibly also against Brazil), it took some time for the team to get settled in, but the second half performances showed the world what Dutch football was capable of.
Based on those two games, optimism in Holland for a World Cup win at the third attempt was high. Nevermind a psychic octopus: along with Arjan Robben, Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie, we had the law of averages on our side. Surely it was our time now?
In a country that had gone completely Orange, it was hard imagining anything other than an Oranje win. And while I shared that belief, for me that optimism disappeared for the most part after watching Spain play Germany. The Spanish killed of Germany by keeping the ball, stifling the midfield and playing lots of intricate little passes. “Death by a thousand passes” someone called it, a reflection of the ancient Chinese form of capital punishment where the condemned was slowly dismembered in front of a large crowd.
Total Football was mortally wounded in 1974 and lingered long enough to survive until 1978, but by the time Holland re-emerged on the international stage in 1988 in that tremendous European Championship win it was quite dead
I say this genuinely without the benefit of hindsight, but it occurred to me in the days leading up to the final that if Holland where to beat the Spanish, the only way to do this was to do exactly what any technically inferior side does: play hard, play dirty, disrupt the flow of the game and score on the counter. In fact, by doing exactly what Argentina did in 1978.
That plan was clearly in operation straight from the kick-off. The first half was nervy affair in which Spain could not get into their rhythm thanks to the ‘committed’ style of play employed by the Dutch. Within the first thirty minutes, English referee Howard Webb had pulled out his yellow card five times, and the prospects of either of these teams (but more in particular Holland) finishing the game with eleven players diminished with every foul.
In this, Holland where spectacularly successful. They disrupted the game, fouled and harried the Spanish around the pitch whenever they could. The tactic worked for the most part, but there seemed to be little thought put into what happens when they did finally get the ball. Lacking the same incisive passing skills of the Spanish (who chased the ball as much as Holland did, but without conceding the fouls), Holland where reduced to speculative long balls over the top and down the flanks towards Robben. His markers had done their homework, forcing the Bayern Munich player onto his weaker right foot and reducing the threat from the cross into the box.
Robben would later miss one absolute sitter (I refuse to credit Casillas with the save: it was a bad miss) and may have had legitimate claims on a penalty later on, but by then, the game as a footballing spectacle had disappeared as Howard Webb’s notebook was filling up.
In the end, as penalties loomed, it was a moment of brilliance and controversy that won the Cup for Spain. While Robben was still chasing down Howard Webb for failing (incorrectly, as replays proved) to award a corner from a deflection of Fabregas following a free-kick, the Spanish had moved up the pitch and scored, with Cesc Fabregas (ironically) providing a perfect pass to the impressive Andres Iniesta to drill the ball past Maarten Stekelenburg.
With only a few minutes left on the clock, there was no way back for the Dutch and no time left in which to repeat the magnificent comeback against Brazil. Down to 10-men (Heitinga having been sent off just moments before), not even the anonymous Sneijder and the clearly infuriated Robben could muster one final assault on the Spanish goal. As the final whistle blew, while Casillas fell to his knees in flood of tears, some of the Dutch players surrounded Howard Webb in a futile and frankly shameful display of unsportsmanlike behaviour.
I was born in 1970, the year of probably the greatest World Cup final ever. I was too young to remember 1974 and too young to remember 1978. For me, this was the footballing equivalent of the moon landing, or the JFK assassination: the defining football moment of my generation. It’s a shame it had to end like this, but in know that a Dutch win would not have been right.
Earlier in the evening I posted a tweet in which I said that there’s not points for style in football, but in a fixture which is supposed to showcase the world’s finest players, it was not a final which will go down in the history books as an example of the beautiful game. But perhaps that is the trouble with a game such as this: it comes along so infrequently that for those taking part, winning – or rather, not losing – at all costs often takes precedence over style.
Like Spain, Holland has a young team. Most of these players (with the exception of Bronckhorst and possibly van Bommel) will see another World Cup, and definitely the European Championship in two years time. The question is whether it will take another thirty-two years for this moment to come around again. I hope not, but I fear it might.
And so a flick of the switch on the remote control, and it was all over.