It’s a shame for South Africa that the tremendous enthusiasm exuded throughout the country in the past month was never really reflected by entertainment on the pitch. While Spain are worthy winners, they scored fewer goals than any other world champion and the final will only be remembered for the record number of cards – 14 yellow and 1 red – shown by English referee, Howard Webb.
It’s almost as if Webb was hell-bent on punishing anyone who had spent the day filling their fantasy football team with players from the finalists. But, actually, in the circumstances he was probably being quite restrained.
Holland, the team that invented total football, took a more nihilist approach to stopping Spain last night and it is probably indicative of the tournament as a whole that the talented Dutch side resorted to such clumsy tactics in the showpiece event.
Maybe there is too much pressure in football nowadays. Perhaps the stakes are too high. Whatever the cause, this tournament has felt stifled right from the opening matches. Big players have underperformed and big matches have under whelmed. So perhaps it is fitting that the biggest game of them all should have been such a big disappointment.
