Monday, July 12, 2010
Oh well another World Cup has just ended. It seems such a short time ago I witnessed Zinedane Zidane's 2006 final headbutt and saw David Trezeguet rattle the bar with his fateful penalty, of which was the end of France's proud footballing heritage too, following this year's debacle. Yah and the bloody Italians won then.
But now the best team and the more deserving team won it. Netherland's hard-tackling and boot-flying tactics served them no good, especially with an English referee taking charge. I mean this guy has seen the worse of worse tackles in the English Premiership, this morning.. some of the tackles were not awesome. Nigel de Jong's studs-to-chest on Xabi Alonso and Mark van Bommel's two-legged tackle with no attempt to play the ball were some examples. Spain stuck to their plan, pass, pass, pass (with the obvious movement of course), but it came to nothing in a dour first-half that saw the amount of yellow cards you'd normally see in one game only.
The second half was much better with Arjen Robben the culprit. Fancy him blaming Carlos Puyol for his lack of composure in front of goal when he managed to burn Puyol even when the Spanish defender had two yards head-start. Robben just had no composure this morning and his first one-on-one effort that he slammed at the legs of Iker Casillas emphasized this. Robin van Persie looked clueless and Wesley Sneijder was nullified. Spain on the contrary continued to press with Xavi and Andres Iniesta, even with Xabi Alonso being under-par in terms of his high standards of passing. Then extra-time came, and when Iniesta scored, the ecstasy was all to obvious to see as the WHOLE Spanish bench poured towards Iniesta in obvious delight. What a moment. Casillas and his premature tears could have been punished with a late Dutch equaliser, but it was never to come.
So that's it for 2010. The controversies, all over. Casillas lifts the World Cup as Spain's first ever captain to do so, with the only blip for me was seeing Fernando Torres pulling up after trying to chase a ball, laying there clutching his hamstring. Well he better get back fit and firing in time for the new season, and with the pictures of him having a Liverpool scarf around his neck as he took photographs with the 18 gold carat trophy, I hope he does stay, and comes back stronger with goals next season!
my thoughts at 6:32 pm