Well for most part of the game it resembled one of those parody episodes from the Simpsons, pass, pass, pass, pass, lost ball.
But the first OT and the the second was rather entertaining.
Though I’m confused, they sing ole ole ole at Montreal Canadien games but they don’t sing it at a spanish soccer mathc???
Go figure 
I know many of my Spanish relatives are singing in Montreal this evening and I am sure the wine is flowing freely.
Yay! Thanks to Spain I barely took the lead in the pool!
In spite of the pass and play keep-away Spanish style, the Spaniards should send a thank-you card to Howard Webb and his linesmen who kept up the record of crappy officiating with questionable calls, missed call on Puyol against Robben (especially if the the Iniesta dive that got the Dutch down to 10 men was a yellow card), and the missed corner for the Dutch just before the Spanish goal - very disappointing performance from supposedly the best referee in the business (and a paid professional official as well).
Mind you I am in the anybody but Spain camp … in my view keep-away football is supremely boring … win the world cup with a total of 8 goals - ridiculous.
All that said and complaining regarding Spain winning, you got a nice cat there…lol
Last time Germany was in the World Cup Final, they got there by scoring 6 goals (not counting 8 goals against Saudi Arabia, of course). So I’m sure you thought Germany was ridiculous then too.
And in 1982, Germany got to the final by scoring 6 goals. Ridiculous.
Or would you be more satisfied had Spain scored a bunch of goals against North Korea?
BTW – calling it “keep away football” or “anti-football” is just complaining that your team doesn’t know how to take and keep possession as well as the other team 
Take a look at the Champions League final for the possession stats of Inter versus Munich. Even though Munich clearly had the majority of the possession (67% !!!), Inter were able to win, because they could shepherd the ball even when they didn’t have it, and could just defend and counterattack when Munich made a mistake.
Sucks that neither Germany, Netherlands, nor Portugal could play like Inter. If they did, they could have contained Spain easily.
I certainly don’t agree with you about the officiating – if anything, Webb didn’t give out some blatant reds against the Dutch that he should have. Oh! Excuse me while I “accidentally” kick you in the chest with my studs, yeah, it was an accident. Ridiculous. The Dutch played the same game they always do – unsporting cheapness. They didn’t even do the “return the ball” fairness thing on two occasions.
Off the World Cup beat for a moment I see that Thierry Henry is moving to the MLS, to play with New York.
theglobeandmail.com/sports/s … le1635888/
I dunno considering his fondness for hanging onto the ball, perhaps he’d be a better fit with the Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Yankees or Mets, any ole team where you can grab the ball with your hands! 
I thoroughly enjoyed the game, it was wonderful to watch.
I knew my comments would get people excited … that said the World Cup is still the best sporting event in the world and worthy of my four weeks vacation every four years. Now next year I don;t know what to do with my vacation - at least there is a Euro Cup in 2012.
And I thought Germany played boring football during those years - that is why their team this year was so refreshing and hopefully marks a revival of lively attacking football.
Possession is fine if you attack as well - and I thought that was Spain’s problem - few attacks for all that possession.
The German tactics were all wrong against Spain - I agree with you there - once they went a goal down and started trying to generate an attack instead of a counterattack they did much better. That’s the frustrating thing being a German fan - you never know which team is going to show up and play any given game.
And absolutely the studs to the chest was a straight red card - no doubt about that. And the Dutch are a bit impetuous but Spain has perfected diving under the slightest of challenges - must have learned that from the South Americans playing in Spain.
But I’m especially glad that you remembered my teams are Germany and Bayern Munich …
Let misquote José Mourinho then, and say that “you can play beautiful football even when you don’t have the ball.” unfortunately for Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal (and the others) they didn’t.
Spain controlled this game, and the Dutch let them control it. I think at one point I counted 5 seconds that Xavi had the ball before he was challenged. If you’re going to let the other team have possession and think about their next move, then you don’t deserve to win, sorry. Letting a Spanish midfielder have the ball for so long without being challenged is inexcusable.
How do you contain them? You put lots of pressure on them, and you force them to make mistakes. The Dutch seemed to know that they had to do this, but didn’t keep it up. The few errors did make were forced errors, including giving Kuyt a nice shot.
The problem is that this is fricken hard, it requires constant attention and requires even more physical effort than simply keeping possession. But hey, it’s a World Cup final, if you don’t work harder than the other side, then they win. I’ve never seen a national side defend against good possession. It’s something that only a club can learn, from constant reinforcement, training and fitness. Hard to get a world cup team to put that much effort into defending, especially since the players are usually exhausted after long professional seasons.
In short, the Dutch needed to put in more physical effort than they did if they wanted to stop the passing game.
All that being said, it’s supremely ironic that the style of Total Football that Spain won with is a Dutch style. Johan Cruyff, Frank Rijkaard, and those guys taught this style of play to Barcelona. It was no coincidence that Real Madrid had 5 Dutch players last year. Until the Spanish started playing Dutch-style Total Football, they were basically imitating the unsuccessful English kick and run style.
So you can thank the Dutch for the current reign of Spain and Spanish teams. It came back to bite them on the ass!
Well I’ll bet the Dutch porn star that offered free BJ’s to her twitter followers if the Dutch won is thankful. She went from 5,000 followers to 95,000. That’s a lot of pay-offs if the Dutch had won the whole thing…lol
I was rooting for the Netherlands, but I think that when it was all said and done, the Spanish played a better game on both sides of the ball and deserved to win the game. While I might question a few of the referee’s decisions, the right result came when it was all said and done.
World Cup Stars and their cars:
autos.sympatico.ca/photos-videos … their-cars
How can you tell I’m watching the new Top Gear episode 
[quote=“DWhite”]
For me, a balance between offense and defense is needed. But like I said, I don’t get the defensive side of soccer. [/quote]
I totally agree with you there. A good balance is what makes sports interesting to watch. Soccer can be like that and when it is, it is awesome.
So a lot of us will never “really” appreciate soccer because we weren’t born or have relatives in Europe or South America.
The thing is, for a lot of those “true” soccer fan, if you suggest something that might make the game a little better in your opinion, they jump right to FIFA’ s defence and call you ignorant about the game and start this whole pile of BS about how it’s much more than passing and scoring. I’ve heard that too many times before.
I’m a hockey fan, but I don’t agree with all the rules in hockey. I live with it but I would like some of them changed. Why can’t I express the same thing about soccer? If I do, then I “don’t understand” soccer and I am not a fan.
It’s seems you can’t say anything bad about it. Officiating is always good (unless, you know, it’s a French guy). Players fake their falls but that’s " part of the game" so don’t say anything about it. Offside is such a clear rule that there are never mistakes. Penalty shots, just don’t go there. Etc…
Soccer is sacred!
It’s, like the quote attributed to Shankly, that was stolen by MiG a few threads ago:
Gosh it’s a sport. But if you say that, you are not a “true” fan!
Here is another Shankly quote that sums it up:
And another:
It seems that not too many players follow the previous advice. I guess they’re all sure what to do with the ball.
I asked in the other thread, Bigthumb, about what you thought about the changes FIFA made in the Europa League, and are extending to this year’s Champions League and Euro qualifying.
I don’t think the rules are sacred, that’s why they keep refining them.