World Cup. Final. Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11/7/10. aet 0-1.

Not a classic. Again, finals are usually far too nervy affairs for the football to be flowing.

Here it was the Dutch who were more nervous about losing than the Spanish, yet they could have won it if Arjen Robben had put their best chance away.

They were lucky to have eleven men still on the pitch after the first half which featured mostly anti-football. What a comedown from the days of Total Football.

Spain could bury teams if they had a taller forward line, got width and delivered accurate crosses. As it is they seem content to win 1-0. That’s four of those in a row now.

A sideline to the Spanish win is that Scotland once again have the opportunity to be crowned Unofficial World Champions when we play them during the next Euro qualifiers.

That is if someone else doesn’t beat them first.

And pigs fly.

World Cup, 3^rd/4^th place play-off, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth, 10/7/10.

This was a ding-dong encounter, end-to-end stuff, both sides managing to take the lead then being clawed back, one going in front again, the other hitting the bar with the last kick of the ball.

Enjoyable stuff.

I doubt the final tomorrow will be as good as this.

The ref ought to have sent off Germany’s Aogo for a wild, over the top challenge but, as it was the third place game, contented himself with a yellow.

Diego Forlan has looked better and better with every game he has played.

I watched the first half of the game last night in the company of Onebrow. He asked me if I’d noticed that the foul throw no longer seems to be penalised. I told him I had and that it’s only outrageous examples that catch a ref or linesman’s eye nowadays.

I suppose it’s because a throw-in is supposed to be an advantage to the taker (btw a Dumbarton supporter laughs at any such suggestion) and so the officials let minor infringements go.

I also said what annoys me more is the consistent cheating indulged in by those who are awarded a free-kick anywhere outside the attacking third. (The refs are more stringent in that area.) On the award being given the ball has immediately been thrown, or placed, ten yards or more in front of where the foul took place. In some cases this has meant offences in a team’s own half have resulted in a free kick taken in their opponent’s. Another was given for a foul on the goal line and taken from near the eighteen yard line. These instances are surely not hard to spot.

All the teams seem to be at this. And don’t get me started on teams “stealing” yards at throw-ins, which is endemic in the professional game.

In this regard, congratulations to David Villa who, after the field invasion interruption just after the game started, did not lump the ball all the way back to Germany’s goalkeeper on the restart but played it a few yards to where Germany had actually had possession. He gets my “sporting gesture” award for this World Cup. (He’ll probably do a Hand of God in the Final now I’ve said that.)

Far too many (for which read: all) instances of giving the ball back in circumstances like these consist in negating, and more, any advantage the team in possession had at the time of the ball being put out of play.

I also note today that the BBC seems to think FIFA are going to introduce goal-line technology before the next Word Cup.

Parsing what Jerome Valcke says, “I would say that it is the final World Cup with the current refereeing system,” suggests to me that another two refs, one behind each goal line, as in the Europa Cup, rather than microchips in the ball, is what is in the collective FIFA mind.

World Cup Semi-Final: Durban Stadium, Durban, 7/7/10

Again not a classic.

Where were the Germans who swept aside England and Argentina? I can recall them having only the one chance; which fell to the wrong K, Kroos not Klose. Apart from that they were never given much of a chance to counterattack by a Spanish side who pressed them high up the park and didn’t allow them time on the ball.

So the Spanish 1-0 juggernaut rolls on. Three results in a row squeezed out now, three one-nils out of five wins in total. Yet Spain seemed to have less of an aversion to shooting in this game – even if most of their efforts went past the post.

There’ll be a new name on the Cup on Sunday. But neither of them has set the tournament alight.

It’ll also be the first time a European side has won a World Cup outside Europe. Previously only Brazil have won outside their own continent (if you count Argentina’s win in Mexico as being in the Americas.)

World Cup Semi-Final: Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, 6/7/10

Despite the scoreline this wasn’t a classic. Semi-finals rarely are.

I thought Uruguay were shading it till van Bronckhorst hit his wonder strike. Holland took control for a while but the kerfuffle before the double booking seemed to benefit Uruguay who had much the better of the remainder of the half. Forlan’s goal was also well hit but yet another of this tournament’s goalkeeping misjudgements.

Uruguay were looking more menacing in the second half too; until the Dutch goal – at which van Persie was quite definitely offside. However I suspect that after Suarez’s handball in the last game Uruguay were never going to get the benefit of any close decisions in this one. They were then hit with a sucker punch via Robben’s head and suddenly Holland began to look a team. The game was effectively over.

The well worked free kick for Uruguay’s second came too late but showed Holland can be panicked at the back. A few minutes earlier and who knows…?

Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, 3/7/10.

World Cup history was going to be made whoever won this match. In the end it was Spain who got to their first ever semi-final.

For all they played quite well tonight (and might have won but for the penalty save) I couldn’t keep from reminding myself that Paraguay had got this far by virtue of only one victory in the whole tournament – against Slovakia. Spain now have four; but have looked far from convincing. Once again, and like Argentina earlier in the day, their players continually took wrong options, held on to the ball when they should have passed and generally kept running into defensive walls.

The first half was dire, the second (pacé the assertions of Hansen and Dixon) not much better – though we had the mad three minutes with three penalty attempts and a third award denied.

Four South American sides in the quarters but only one survives to the semis; and that the team that came fifth in the Conmebol qualifiers, and had to beat Costa Rica in a play off, to wit Uruguay.

Puyol again looked vulnerable, as did Piqué. Germany could mince them.

Greeen Point Stadium, Cape Town, 3/7/10.

A triumph for teamwork over individualism. The Argentines believed in their own abilities too much, kept the ball when a pass was on instead and ended up smothered by a German blanket. (Spain might be able to pass their way through this sort of defence; but I have my doubts. They don’t have enough width – as neither did Argentina.) The Germans knew exactly what to do when they had the ball, passed into the correct space and had scalpel-like precision when it mattered.

The turning point was really the first goal, a bad one for Argentina to lose as it gave the Germans extra belief – and something to hold on to. Without it, the first goal in the second half wouldn’t have been such a blow to Argentina. 1-0 down was perhaps doable, but not 2-0.

There are only two former winners left in it now. What odds would you have got on one of them being Uruguay? And neither being Brazil nor Argentina?

Soccer City, Johannesburg, 2/7/10. aet 1-1: pens 4-2

This game had everything.

Both teams going for it, momentum see-sawing, chances at both ends, crunching tackles, neat passing, a surprising long range goal, a superbly struck free kick, a sending-off, a last minute (of extra time) penalty – missed. A game like this is why football can be so enthralling.

Sadly the culmination was a penalty shoot-out; never a satisfactory way for a team to lose.

The first half was one of two quarters. It looked bad for Ghana – not at the races early on. After about twenty minutes there was a stat that said: Corners; Uruguay 4-0 Ghana.

Then Ghana got their first and suddenly it was all them and Uruguay “fell oot it.*”

Ghana deserved their lead at the break. The second half was more even. Ghana were shading it in extra time but Uruguay were never unthreatening.

Btw it took till extra time before the commentators noticed Ghana were stationing two men on the goal line at their attacking corners – something I clocked very early.

I also thought that, since the keeper had come out, Stephen Appiah might have been offside before he hooked the ball towards goal immediately before the handball on the line and that therefore it shouldn’t have been a penalty – but that would have deprived us of the compelling finale.

* (phrase © a schoolmate of mine.)

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth, 2/7/10.

This match had drama but it wasn’t a classic. It was too stop-start, there were too many fouls. And any game where someone is sent off ends up unbalanced – and unsatisfying. But, as I recall, the Holland-Brazil game in 1974 was a bad-tempered, niggly affair too.

You couldn’t see the result coming at half time. Holland had created nothing, Arjen Robben kept running into blind alleys, Brazil had scored through a very direct route indeed.

In the end Brazil pushed the “destroy self” button, or the Dutch pushed it for them.

The irony is that a team built (against the national stereotype) on being solid at the back was undone by defensive mistakes.

The winning side wasn’t the Holland of Cruyff and Neeskens – nor even Gullit and Rijkaard – but something rather more pedestrian and workmanlike. They’ll probably reach the final now, though.

And maybe go one better than either of those more flamboyant teams did.

Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, 29/6/10.

This could have been a good game but Portugal were content to let Spain keep the ball and pass it in front of them, restricting the Spanish to long range shots for the most part and as a consequence it failed to be a spectacle.

For all their vaunted passing (up blind alleys most of the time it has to be said) it was funny how Spain only began really to get at Portugal after they replaced Torres with Llorente and started humping it up to the big man.

The commentator (Guy Mowbray?) opined that Piqué was maybe a weak link for Spain. Personally I think given what I saw of his performance in the Switzerland game (and all of the Honduras one) Carles Puyol may have passed his peak.

Like most goalkeepers at this World Cup, apart from Julio Cesar, and Eduardo in this one, Casillas looked iffy too.

Two day break, now. I’ll be getting withdrawal symptoms.

Edited to add: even in real time I thought David Villa was offside at the back heel to him before the goal. We didn’t get the relevant stop-motion replay till after the game, though. Funny that, isn’t it?