World Cup 2010

JoxerTheDeityPirate wrote: ^they said that in 74 and 78 and then Gullit and co came along 10 years later..
Yeah, but that was the European Championship ;)

What bugs me most, is that the entire world is disgusted by the Dutch football right now. Merely because Van Bommel and De Jong made some reckless fouls and proved to be perfect K1 candidates. What about players such as Stekelenburg and Van Bronckhorst? They simply don't deserve this. All the positive things have passed into oblivion. It's a downright shame. A pisspoor final and I hope De Jong will be dismissed from the Dutch team. He ruined everything.

De Jong's foul was very ugly and Van Bommel is *always* close to a send off in any match he plays! However, I do not think that the Dutch team will be judged only for the fouls in the final. They played a great tournament and probably were over-motivated vs a Spanish team that simply could not be separated from the ball with legal means!  Dutch football has a reputation for it's beauty - the Dutch team used to be called the Brazilians of Europe but they did not win anything with all the beautiful matches, so maybe the pendulum turned to the other extreme and they tried to be successful with more fighting and more toughness. If Robben had scored - and he did have two excellent chances -  the Dutch team even would have  had a good chance to win the match. Certainly the Dutch team was the hardest opponent for Spain in the whole tournament. We all would have wished for a better final but in a final it's often an "all or nothing" situation for the whole life career of players, it's easy to overreact under such pressure.

I know how you feel, Vali ! It must have been long 120 minutes for all Spanish fans:-)

^with tongue firmly in cheek i have to say that Switzerland were Spain's toughest opponents as they were the only team to beat them ;-D [1-0 opening game]

Sky Sports News are showing statistics for the World Cup and what doesnt surprise me is that Spain were the most fouled team and that the Dutch conceded the most fouls of the tournament,so the Dutch were statistically kicking 5 bells out of everyone right the way through and saved their biggest "kick-ins" for the Spanish.
this team wont be mentioned in the same breath as the "total football" teams of the 70's and the late 80's.
one British commentator actually gave a "weeeeeeeeeeeee" when Van Bommel got booked in the semi-final as he thought he would never get booked :-p

I'm so happy that Spain won.

Yes, I agree, Jon - they did not win historical recognition like the 1974 team but if they had won, they would be the heoes and the fouls would have been forgotten soon. As Otto Rehagel (German coach) used to say: a beautiful match is a won match :-)

It´s official,octopus Paul died this morning RIP you lucky bastard

According to Yahoo news, Paul the octupus didnt die at all - he only retired....

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/12072010/58/world-cup-2010-octopus-paul-retires.html

He DID die,he drowned

my friend from argentina was on my yahoo chat complained to me about losing his team was losing, so i made a joke about general belgrano and he blocked me xD

I think the match was poorly played by both sides (IMHO they both deserved to lose), but the referee behaved appaulingly. He was quite simply excessive in drawing his yellow card. I wouldn't even call it speculation to say that Yuichi Nishimura, to name an example, would have led the match far better. Webb was unfair to both teams and appeared to be determined to stop the match from gaining momentum on the one hand, then leaving other fouls (again, from both sides) unattended at times when it is of no benefit  to the game, not to speak of gross oversights like the offside-born Spanish goal.

Campeones, Campeones, OEOEOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I thought Webb did okay in difficult circumstances e.g. the Dutch trying to kick Spain off the pitch and the Spanish players surrounding the referee every time he had a decision to make. Both teams behaved badly, but the Dutch were shocking. If Webb had booked everyone who deserved it, it would have been 9 Spanish players against 7 Dutch at the end.

Which confirms my belief that I should have been allowed to referee the game. I made my services available to FIFA but they didn't even reply to my carrier pidgeon.

Yes!!!!! Spain won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It wasn't a great final; Spain didn't play as well as they were capable of and the Dutch definitely played dirty, but I am really delighted that Spain won. :D :D :D

Anyone else felt that the Ger-Uru game was more watchable than the final?

Absolutely.  The third place game was far superior, and not just because of the scoreline.  There's far more to football than the scoreline - it was a far better game technically and artistically.