FIFA World Cup 2010: The Dirtiest final ever between Spain vs. Netharlands
After an exciting and eagerly awaited World Cup in South Africa, Sunday's final between Spain and the Netherlands left a very bad taste in a lot of football fans mouths. It was a scrappy, rough and very badly played game. There were so many fouls committed that the hardest working man out on the field was the referee Howard Webb. From insane tackles to poor passes, the concept of ‘Total Football’ went out the window. It is hoped that both teams can go back and recover from the brutal match that took place on 11th July 2010 in Soccer City. Spain will have a much easier time recovering, as they are the World Champions, but the Dutch side need to reassess what went wrong and why they played so poorly.
The final started off with a lot of fanfare and a wonderful closing ceremony featuring Shakira and many other stars. Once the match got underway though, things started to go wrong early on. Since no one on either side wanted to make a mistake that would cost them the final, both teams looked very nervous and played with a lot of jittery passes. No beautiful plays were noticed and the game got off to a bad start with many fouls being committed. At the end of the game, the referee gave out 14 yellow cards and 1 red card, although there should have been a straight red for a horrendous tackle by De Jong. The Netherlands managed to commit 28 fouls to the Spanish side’s 18. There were players falling over everywhere and the match just could not get any sort of rhythm or flow to it. The game looked like it would get a few red cards because of the large number of yellows given out in the first half.
What happened to this game? Throughout the tournament, the Dutch had been playing some beautiful football and they had won every game until the final. The final itself saw the Dutch making uncharacteristically harsh challenges and gave the other team so many fouls, that it seemed as if they had forgotten how to play clean football. At the end of the match, the only Dutch player not cautioned was the goalkeeper. The former Dutch international and some say their best player, Johan Cruyff, went on the rampage and blasted the Dutch team for the extremely poor performance they gave out on the field. He was most disappointed in the style of play that was exhibited with so many fouls being awarded and so many cards being shown. He was most saddened to see what he called the vulgar tactics that were shown by the Dutch on Sunday, and said that they had lost the titles of promoters of ‘Total Football’. It is worrying when a former player shows so much scorn for a team’s performance in a football match.
The president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter has also said that he was disappointed in the way the final was played. He said there was a total lack of fair play and too many fouls had been committed. It had marred the entire game but could not take anything away from the tournament overall. The match had no elements of fair play with people trying to hack each other down. It even led to Dutch supporters saying that they felt that Spain was the better team that night and the Dutch had committed too many fouls during the game. At least the Spanish side can l**k their wounds later and for the time being they can bask in the golden glow of their trophy. The game turned very ugly when Nigel De Jong of the Netherlands gave Xabi Alonso a flying kick to the chest. It was such a bad tackle that the Dutch player should have been given a straight red card, but the referee cannot be blamed because he was already bogged down with trying to keep control of the match. Alonso said it was the worst challenge of his career and he had no sympathy towards De Jong. No one should really have any sympathy for him either after such a brutal tackle.
A little bit of football's glory died that night in Johannesburg. The ugly side of football was revealed and it was seen just how dirty the game can be played. It was a disappointing end to a great tournament. Hopefully all the teams can recover and come back in four years time for another brilliant performance of football, this time in the samba capital of the world; Brazil 2014.
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