What were the Dutch thinking? 5 minutes to go and they played a full field? They deserved to lose.
In all honesty, Spain controlled the ball better in the mid-field and had plenty of shots on-goal to warrant the win. They earned it.
Well, Spain deserved it, even if the goal was preceded by an off-side. We shouldn’t have needed all those yellow cards to keep them in check. We were too aggressive early on, not for attacking but for defending. It cost us dearly, and I think Huntelaar for van Persie and Ooijer instead of Rafael would have been better I think.
(In terms of shots on goal, Robben got pretty close too though. 
)
Anyway, congrats to Spain!
Spain played the better game. Viva Espana! I think I have a bottle of Rioja in the basement.
Congratulations to the undefeated champions of the World Cup …
New Zealand!
(Yeah, nice job by Spain, too.)
Oh man, I can’t believe the way everyone kept flopping at the end and there were 5 yellow cards and they kept sailing their shots 30 feet over the goal before finally managing to get one in after 120 frickin minutes.
Sport of the future!
Congrats to Spain . A worthy champion.
Actually after the first half it wasn’t a bad game. Recent world cup finals have been cagey affairs and this was one of the better ones of the past couple of decades. While I feel for the Netherlands losing their third final, I don’t think they really looked like world champion material and were perhaps a touch lucky to reach the final.
Despite their early loss and their inability to win by big margins Spain did look like world champions and definitely played the better football today.
Yawn. Fuck off.
I agree.
Also, despite all the yellow cards, i thought the referee actually did a pretty good job on controlling things. His only real miss, i think, was the kick to the chest in the first half, which would (and should) have been a red card in just about any other game.
Overall, though, most of the cards were deserved, as players came in for silly challenges or wrestled their opponents to the grounds.
This thread has over 2,500 posts, and your only contribution is come in at the end of a month of fabulous soccer and deride something that you clearly neither understand nor care about.
You’re a real champion.
Too bad what I posted wasn’t an exaggeration. At all.
The better side definitely won. Congrats to all you Spain fans. Use the 4 years of bragging rights for good and not evil!
There was a detail about the goal that I loved.
As soon as he saw the ball had gone in, Iniesta took his shirt off: this is an automatic yellow AFAIK (he did get one and since nobody explained why, I assume that my info on this is correct), so I though “what the fuck are you doing that for?”
Turns out it was to dedicate the goal to Dani Jarque, another young player who died sudden and unexpectedly about a year ago. His undershirt had the dedication on it.
ETA: my house is very close to a road that goes all around town… I don’t think I’ll sleep much tonight, with all the cars that are out there celebrating!
Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you’re not being a douchebag.
That being said, I thought that was the worst game of the entire tournament, and contained a heavy dose of pretty much all the bad parts of the sport. If it could have happened that neither team won, I’d have been thrilled.
I saw that, but i didn’t know who or what Dani Jarque was. Thanks for the explanation.
I’ve followed this thread for the whole tournament, but only posted two or three times. But I want to thank everybody who contributed, it is a great thread. Special thanks to **wintertime ** for his thoughtful analyses.
You get a chance to reorganise your defense.
You’re right, it is the sport of the future.
¡Olé!’ ¡Olé!’ ¡Olé!’ ¡Felicitaciones España! The final wasn’t much of a spectacle until extra-time… but a well-deserved victory in the end.
Incidentally, there wasn’t anything offside about Iniesta’s goal–the Dutch were complaining because the play from which the goal resulted had started with a Spanish goal-kick, when it should have been a Dutch corner. But really, the Dutch only have themselves to blame for not putting away a couple of easy opportunities earlier in the match (esp. Robben’s chances). And on the overall balance of play throughout the tournament, it would have been terribly unjust had Holland won rather than Spain, IMO.
After all that, Arjen Robben is the goat - not because he took a dive when he shouldn’t, but because he didn’t take one when he should (ie., when Puyol was spinning around on the ground trying to bring him down when he broke away the second time). Who thought that was going to happen?
A big round of applause to both teams. Yeah, it was ugly, and very chippy, but it wasn’t dirty (except for de Jong’s flying kick, which should have been an automatic red).
Congratulations, Spain; now, good luck holding on to that trophy.
He was the captain of RCD Espanyol, who are the “other” Barcelona team, so it was especially poignant for Spaniards, I imagine (Barca and Espanyol fans dislike each mother nearly as much as the various London clubs’ fans).