Spain has done it! They have become the 8th country in the history of the World Cup to proudly boast a star on their roja shirts! I am very happy for Iniesta who scored the winning goal. First of all he proves wrong all those that think that you need to have a body builded corpulence to make it in football. Then I like this player’s style. He plays forward, knows when to pass the ball and when to keep it and is one of the rare confrontational dribblers out there. In my mind he was the best player of the final. Another decisive factor in Spain’s win was Fabregas’s entry. He brought fast forward movements to the Spanish side who I felt was sometimes playing too laterally with Xavi.
I was very disappointed by the Dutch. Where have they left their flamboyant football? It is now the second time that they leave a violent mark on the World Cup, the first time being the infamous eighth final against Portugal in 2006. The quatuor which I had thought could make the difference was unable to get sufficient ammunitions from the midfield and Van Persie was transparent.
Apart from the final, here is my take on this 19th World Cup:
- There were no new revolutionary or even marked evolutionary strategies.
- The first round was as non-Cup like as usual.
- I missed one single breathtaking game like Germany-Italy in 1970, Argentina-Peru in 1978, France-Germany in 1982, France-Brazil in 1986, England-Cameroon in 1990. The closest was probably Uruguay-Ghana for the incredible cliff-hanging suspense of that game.
), probably the best football commentator that ever was, you just get a pure moment of magic. I wish European commentators would sound more thrilled when they comment games. Do you know of any?