So cheats do prosper.....

[Sun Tzu]

Sure there were tackles worthy of bookings, but I thought Webb was being biased against the Dutch. DeJong sent off for basically touching Xavi's shoulder, another booking (I forget who) for touching Xavis leg with his hand when he rode the challenge. The scream from Iniesta as he was tackled, and failed to get a free kick (and then took out his revenge on van Bommel.)
.

Do Jong wasn't sent off for anything (but should have been)

Haitinga pulled Xavi back, he didn't just touch his shoulder

The other booking you refer to was a tap tackle (in rugby terms)- cynical and clear booking.

Look at the analysis of the bookings, Webb got them right. If anything he was lenient on the Dutch.

But agree that Spain played their part in the ugliness of the game.

Your claim that Webb was biased is ridiculous.

[CMRoyal]

Fernando Torres is 6 ft 1 by the way. They need more like him with pace and height.

[Maguire]

Sure there were tackles worthy of bookings, but I thought Webb was being biased against the Dutch. DeJong sent off for basically touching Xavi's shoulder, another booking (I forget who) for touching Xavis leg with his hand when he rode the challenge. The scream from Iniesta as he was tackled, and failed to get a free kick (and then took out his revenge on van Bommel.)
.

Do Jong wasn't sent off for anything (but should have been)

Haitinga pulled Xavi back, he didn't just touch his shoulder

If you're going to correct him, you might want to reassess which Spanish midfielder it was who Heitinga actually pulled back.

Clue: it wasn't Xavi.

[Nick Shorey my Lord!]

A great team would have won at least one of their games in this tournament by more than 1 goal that was scored in the latter stages of the game.

This is grade A rubbish. It doesn't matter how many goals you win by, because you don't win by the volume of goals, you just need to score one more than your opponent; dem de rulez.

Ok so you understand that you have to score more than your opponent to win well done.

Are you trying to tell me that this spanish team are a Great team???? Are you trying to compare this sad excuse for a football team with the great Brazilian Argentine German Italian and even French teams of the past? Wake up... The fact of the matter is yes the Spanish won the world cup but to be honest they didnt play exciting or even good football. They played effective football. They seem to have played pass around at the back for 80 mins bore the opposition to sleep and then hit them once football.

This has to go down in my mind as the worst world cup ever.

My little Kes attempt worked.

Of course there're not an '82 Brazil, a '74 Dutch and so on...but they won. The game has moved on, as it always does and at this moment in time, the free-flowing attacking style doesn't win you tournaments. It's all about a gritty, strategic and a fairly defensive approach. That, to me, doesn't make it any better or any worse than any other style - all have their faults.

You can score goals for fun but if your defense is shit they you haven't a hope - Argentina.
You can play the best counter-attacking style but if your midfield is swamped you've had it - Germany.
If you can have a rock solid back four, a team that keeps it shape, knows it's style, plays to it and has a little bit of flair up it's pocket then you might win - Spain.

[PieEater]

The tap tackle was maybe a foul if it was intentional, not a booking, I think we'll have to disagree on whether it was a cynical pull back or a touch, that sort of contact always happens with an attacker passing a defender. Either way they were very soft bookings, and probably only because (whichever cheating spanish player it was) went down and rolled around. I say Webb was biased as there were other equal fouls that were not booked, and there were no crowds of dutch players around him calling for bookings.

On the whole Webb got the bookings right for the harsher tackles, but I'm tending to agree with JMW that the cheats prospered.

[Ian Royal]

Of course there're not an '82 Brazil, a '74 Dutch and so on...but they won. The game has moved on, as it always does and at this moment in time, the free-flowing attacking style doesn't win you tournaments. It's all about a gritty, strategic and a fairly defensive approach. That, to me, doesn't make it any better or any worse than any other style - all have their faults.

You can score goals for fun but if your defense is shit they you haven't a hope - Argentina.
You can play the best counter-attacking style but if your midfield is swamped you've had it - Germany.
If you can have a rock solid back four, a team that keeps it shape, knows it's style, plays to it and has a little bit of flair up it's pocket then you might win - Spain.

That's all well and good, but fails to take into account that Spain beat Germany by a whisker when arguably their player of the tournament was suspended. Play that game 10 times and the Spanish wouldn't win it every time, by quite some way. Add in Mueller and there's plenty of reason to believe they wouldn't necessarily win it the majority of times.

The team with the best combination of skill, experience and mental strength won the tournament. But it was a very close run thing for the Spanish. Which suggests to me that the bit in bold is just not clear fact and is simply based on the fact that on this occasion the Spanish won through. That doesn't mean that the only way to win a tournament now is that way. Otherwise the only teams in serious contention would have played like that.

[RoyalChicagoFC]

I've had this on the brain ever since FT AET:

Would the ring of accuracy append to the notion that in the final anaLOLysis, we all utterly f*cking loathe this game with which we, to individually varying degrees, are more or less obsessed

[Maguire]

That's all well and good, but fails to take into account that Spain beat Germany by a whisker when arguably their player of the tournament was suspended. Play that game 10 times and the Spanish wouldn't win it every time, by quite some way. Add in Mueller and there's plenty of reason to believe they wouldn't necessarily win it the majority of times

Disagree. Spain were miles better than Germany who were made to look like plodders. So what if they wouldn't win it ten times out of ten, that's a ridiculous argument when you're talking about a world cup semi-final. Man Utd wouldn't beat Burnley ten times out of ten.

Overall I think if the Torres of 2008 had been playing rather than the useless spazzer they actually had in this tournament then they would've been ever better.

Not to say I agree with the specifics of NSML's post though. Doesn't give Spain enough credit IMHO.

[readingbedding]

very good 5-a-side team Spain, are their fans still booing the blacks?

[soggy biscuit]

very good 5-a-side team Spain, are their fans still booing the blacks?

Roger Black
Jack Black
Frank Black

[readingbedding]

[Nick Shorey my Lord!]

That's all well and good, but fails to take into account that Spain beat Germany by a whisker when arguably their player of the tournament was suspended. Play that game 10 times and the Spanish wouldn't win it every time, by quite some way. Add in Mueller and there's plenty of reason to believe they wouldn't necessarily win it the majority of times

Disagree. Spain were miles better than Germany who were made to look like plodders. So what if they wouldn't win it ten times out of ten, that's a ridiculous argument when you're talking about a world cup semi-final. Man Utd wouldn't beat Burnley ten times out of ten.

Overall I think if the Torres of 2008 had been playing rather than the useless spazzer they actually had in this tournament then they would've been ever better.

Not to say I agree with the specifics of NSML's post though. Doesn't give Spain enough credit IMHO.

Agree with Maguire. The Spanish tactics prevented the Germans from their killer weapon; the counter-attack. Even with Mueller they would have struggled.

I actually give Spain a big chunk of credit. The way they kept to the style and didn't panic was first class and deserving of the championship.

[Royal Rother]

That's all well and good, but fails to take into account that Spain beat Germany by a whisker when arguably their player of the tournament was suspended. Play that game 10 times and the Spanish wouldn't win it every time, by quite some way. Add in Mueller and there's plenty of reason to believe they wouldn't necessarily win it the majority of times

Disagree. Spain were miles better than Germany who were made to look like plodders. So what if they wouldn't win it ten times out of ten, that's a ridiculous argument when you're talking about a world cup semi-final. Man Utd wouldn't beat Burnley ten times out of ten.

Overall I think if the Torres of 2008 had been playing rather than the useless spazzer they actually had in this tournament then they would've been ever better.

Not to say I agree with the specifics of NSML's post though. Doesn't give Spain enough credit IMHO.

Indeed. I heard a very partisan German journalist acknowledge ruefully how he was disappointed to see his team totally outplayed by a far better Spanish side.

Give it 4 years though and things could be very different.

If you want to add Mueller in to level things up then I'll add Torres in.

[Ian Royal]

That's all well and good, but fails to take into account that Spain beat Germany by a whisker when arguably their player of the tournament was suspended. Play that game 10 times and the Spanish wouldn't win it every time, by quite some way. Add in Mueller and there's plenty of reason to believe they wouldn't necessarily win it the majority of times

Disagree. Spain were miles better than Germany who were made to look like plodders. So what if they wouldn't win it ten times out of ten, that's a ridiculous argument when you're talking about a world cup semi-final. Man Utd wouldn't beat Burnley ten times out of ten.

Overall I think if the Torres of 2008 had been playing rather than the useless spazzer they actually had in this tournament then they would've been ever better.

Not to say I agree with the specifics of NSML's post though. Doesn't give Spain enough credit IMHO.

Agreed it would have been very different if a fit and on form Torres was playing. Spain wouldn't have got through by a whisker despite having the majority of possession.

Pretty pretty keepy ball in the middle of the park is all very nice, but it doesn't win you matches. Spain managed to grind through regardless, but Germany could still have had them on the break several times, and didn't have a great many big scares, considering most the game was played by Spain in their half.

Spain certainly did stifle Germany very effectively. But it still barely worked.

And if you read carefully, I'm saying rather a bit more than Spain wouldn't win all 10 games if it was played that many times.

You obviously really like that still of play. I frankly can't stand it.

[Royal Rother]

You see I think Spain are rather like Arsenal (is that a fair comparison?) - generally I love that style of play and (for pure footballing reasons) would rather watch both of them than any other country / club.

[handbags_harris]

Pretty pretty keepy ball in the middle of the park is all very nice, but it doesn't win you matches. Spain managed to grind through regardless...

Spain have won 51 of their last 55 matches. I think I need say no more.

[Sun Tzu]

The tap tackle was maybe a foul if it was intentional, not a booking,

It was intentional, it was a foul, it was a booking. No question. I don;t think there is any case to be made for a deliberate trip of that type not to be a booking.

I say Webb was biased as there were other equal fouls that were not booked, and there were no crowds of dutch players around him calling for bookings.

To call Webb 'biased' is absolutely unforgiveable. Not even the disgraceful Dutch did that. Every single Dutch card was deserved, he let them off at least 3 major offences. To accuse a referee of bias implies he deliberately favoured one side over the other and that was clearly not the case.

On the whole Webb got the bookings right for the harsher tackles, but I'm tending to agree with JMW that the cheats prospered.

It's hard to see how Spain 'cheated' any more than Holland.Both sides had a pretty cynical outlook but Holland's was clearly premeditated. There were very few incidents in which deliberate foul play by Spain gained them a significant advantage. The Puyol challenge is perhaps the only one and even that is far from clear cut.

I think it is an utter disgrace that you have questioned Webb's honesty , you can kind of understand the Dutch trying to deflect guilt from their performance by trying to blame the ref but you'd hope neutral fans would have a little bit more sense.

[Royal Rother]

FWIW...

Spain Netherlands
.
Goals 1 - 0
.
Shots on Target 4 - 4
.
Shots off Target 13 - 8
.
Blocked Shots 4 - 2
.
Corners 8 - 6
.
Fouls 19 - 28
.
Offsides 6 - 7
.
Passing Success, % 84.2- 69
.
Tackles 28 - 31
.
Tackles Success, % 89.3 - 67.7
.
Possession, % 62.9 - 37.1
.
Territorial Advantage, % 52.1 - 47.9

[sandman]

It's worth noting that Spain had the most shots in the tournament. Hardly the work of a boring team.

[Maguire]

You see I think Spain are rather like Arsenal (is that a fair comparison?) - generally I love that style of play and (for pure footballing reasons) would rather watch both of them than any other country / club.

I think that's a fair (and actually pretty obvious) comparison. I don't think Spain "ground" through anyway. Yes they won games by a single goal but with opposition hell bent on stopping them playing, I still think they were superior in all their matches.