Final Thoughts on a Cup Well Done

I have spent the last month eating, breathing, and living football – and now it’s over. 64 games have been played and decided, finishing with yesterday’s World Cup final where my favorite team – the team I steadfastly supported through thick and thin – SPAIN defeated the Dutch to win their first (of hopefully many more to come) World Cup title. I knew they would win it, even before the tournament started, and they pulled it off by playing their elegant style of play that made me fall in love with them over two years ago.

But for reasons unknown to me, a lot of my friends gave me a hard time about supporting the Spanish. Some did it to jerk my chain. Some did it because they couldn’t understand why someone who was supposedly not Spanish could root for SPAIN. Some did it because they thought the only reason I liked La Roja was because I thought Fernando Torres was hot. Well, I’m here to set the record straight. First, I am in fact Spanish…and quarter Spanish in fact. And second, I don’t like SPAIN only because of the attractiveness of their players, but the attractiveness of their play. I like the way they pass the ball and wait for play to evolve, letting goals come organically instead of frantically. I like the way they dizzy teams into submission with their short passes and then suddenly pounce on them, like a cat toying with a ball of yarn. THAT is why I like SPAIN. Just wanted to clear that up.

Since I was watching the World Cup Final with a friend of mine who was cheering for the Netherlands, I did my best to be as gracious a winner as I could possibly be at that time. I didn’t boast, didn’t yell in anyone’s face, and didn’t run around the house twirling my SPAIN jersey in the air. I was respectful to my sad friend because I knew that I would want that same respect if I had been in his situation. And to be truthful, my friend wasn’t even that sad about the Netherlands loss, mainly because he knew that SPAIN was the better team and deserved to win. Yet, some of my other Dutch-supporting friends were not as well mannered. Some blamed the referee because he gave so many yellow cards, and some accused a few of the Spanish players, mainly hero Iniesta, for bringing ugliness into the game by cheating and flopping during the last periods of the game, instigating the red card on Heitinga. Well, I was going to be the bigger person and just let these comments go and not say anything. I was going to let them be sore losers. But after being slightly offended and giving it some thought, I have decided that I am going to say something. Whether people listen or not, at least it will make me feel better to get these remarks off my chest.

First of all, don’t blame referee Howard Webb. It was nearly an impossible game to referee and he did the best he could. Truth be told, he probably should have given out more cards. Second of all – and probably most important – don’t accuse Iniesta or any other Spanish player of playing ugly soccer or ruining the game with their play. If anything, SPAIN was trying to play their beautiful brand of football and the Netherlands were injecting their brutish style in the game. Let me give you some examples:

• Arjen Robben (or the Benjamin Button of football, as I call him) has been known for mainly one thing during this World Cup – diving and flopping. Every time he was touched, he would fall down and scream like a wildebeest was gnawing on his leg. The Final was no exception. And even after he would get his call, he would complain and bitch about it to the referee. He was continually chirping about something to Howard Webb, and it got annoying. Don’t believe me? Check out this little column by an ESPN writer where he complains about Robben’s whining. And this writer is actually DUTCH! Webb finally gave him a yellow card for all his bitching.

• Mark Van Bommel is known for being an enforcer/bully when he is on the field. He tackles people to either disrupt the flow of play or to knock them off their game. He did just that against SPAIN, mainly to knock them off their game of passing and possession. Luckily, referee Webb caught on to this and gave Van Bommel a yellow early on, thus knocking him off his own game. Van Bommel then thought this gave him license to complain about all of Webb’s subsequent calls against the Dutch. Call him Robben Jr.

• Last but not least, don’t forget about Nigel DeJong, the second half of the Dutch midfield bullies. He probably brought about the biggest disgrace to this game when he decided to go King Leonidas on Xabi Alonso’s chest and somehow managed to escape with just a yellow card. How can you call how Iniesta played “ugly” when DeJong literally planted his studs into Alonso’s chest? There is no way that was unintentional; it was just plain dirty. And for those of you that thought that play was the best part of the game, you need to reexamine your opinion of good football. That’s kind of sad.

• For those who complain that Iniesta and other Spaniards flopped in the overtime, just stop it. Don’t even pretend to think that any of the Dutch players would have flopped if they were in the same situation. So just move on. I’m not going to lie, even though SPAIN had a majority of the possession and more shots, the Dutch definitely had more quality chances, especially Robben’s two breakaways that were stuffed by Iker Casillas, who was easily the best goalkeeper in the tournament (if you don’t believe me, he was named the best goalkeeper of the tournament by FIFA). If you want to blame someone for the Dutch losing, blame Robben. He had two opportunities to score and he couldn’t convert. Plain and simple. I am not the only person who is crucifying the Netherlands for playing in such a rough-and-tumble manner. Pretty much all the World Cup writers on ESPN have complained about the Dutch trading in beautiful soccer for brutish soccer. Here are some links to articles.

• http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/columns/story/_/id/5372276/ce/us/dutch-tarnished-their-reputation?cc=5901&ver=us

• http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/columns/story/_/columnist/hill_jemele/id/5371573/ce/us/ugly-substance-pays-spain?cc=5901&ver=us

• http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/columns/story/_/id/5371565/ce/us/defense-yellow-card-howard-webb?cc=5901&ver=us

Even Johan Cruyff, Dutch superstar of the 1970s is slamming his countrymen for their awful style of play. Now you know it’s bad when even your most prominent soccer player says that you disgraced the sport. For all those people out there who are bent out of shape over the Netherlands loss, all I can really say to you is “get over it.” The Dutch had a great tournament, don’t get me wrong. The game could have gone either way, and I wouldn’t have felt that bad if the Dutch won. Okay, I would have been a little upset, but I definitely wouldn’t have openly complained about it. I would eventually get over it and move on to Euro 2012. But you can’t deny the fact that the Spanish deserved to win. They may not have been as commanding victors as they were two years ago in the European Championships, but you couldn’t say that they weren’t the best team in any of their games. They came into the tournament as one of the best teams in the world, and they proved that they are the best team in the world. If you don’t like it, put up or shut up and wait until Brazil in four years.

And that is all I have to say about that.