Final "Violence"

Final "Violence"

Having skimmed through the press here in the UK and spoken to people in the office, it appears that I watched a different final to everyone else last night.  Everything is about how thuggish the dutch were, only kicking lumps out of the spaniards, etc.  This is off Football365, with my reaction to it below: Frankie Mac2010-07-12 21:17:21

Webb did well. Free kick and cards deserved. Could have given more (De Jong straight red and Robben for kicking away ball). And he was consistent.

Robben played on when Puyol grabbed him (surprisingly - prob cos he was outside the box) so could not be called.

Im kind of with Frankie on this...It wasn't a dirty game at all. Didn't think Webb had the most amazing of games. He seemed to book a lot of players for nothing,and the only bad tackle was the kick to the chest.

Although it would be kind of cool if they did.

OK son, you want a booking? Well, here's one!

They did crack down on it hard for a while there im certain. I miss when they did. Should be as automatic as the yellow you get for removing your shirt.

agree, i was pissed off by the spanish 'card' waving bollocks


fifa has been gutless about that and the diving and dying swan acts from some players/teams

having said that, the dutch were always risking a a double yellow though - given the attitude of some of the other refs in this tournament it could have ended up as a 5-a-side match

Although I'll admit that I'm slightly biased towards Holland, it has to be said that the standard that Webb set with that first yellow was what made for a messy card-fest of a game.

I'm not blaming the ref for us losing because I think Spain were the more skilful/threatening side, but it was a sh*t game because of the way he handled it. While he gave some soft cards early on, he missed some fouls and gave less for far more cynical offences later on in the game.

I also think Spain tried to draw fouls/cards out of the ref because they knew the Dutch were going to get stuck in and make tackles - like they had all tournament - and it worked for the Spanish. I think the Italians also employed this as a tactic against the All Whites.

So the Dutch have been labelled as the cynical ones but I think that's bollocks. Both as bad as each other IMO.

I mostly agree with you Frankie.TopLeft072010-07-12 21:53:22

I find it strange when people agree with me.  Can someone call me a c**t to make this thread a bit more normal?

I agree with you,but you're still a c**t.

I'm sure it was mentioned at the beginning of last years A-League that gesturing to the referee to produce cards would be a cautionable offence for USB/Dissent.

If it wasn't the A-League there was a directive somewhere fairly recently to do this

I forgot to mention the gesturing of cards which is a pretty obvious indication of this tactic to draw fouls and cards.

I'm not being sour about the result but it's no secret it was one hell of an ugly game. Which is unfortunate considering it's the most important/most watched/most talked about game of football in four years.

some pundits make a case for RVP to be lucky to stay on the field...it was only because it was so early he was not dismissed.

what exactly was van Bommel's contribution to this game, or in fact the tournament Frankie?
also how is a player or team most likely to react after receiving his 'tackle' on Xavi?

sometimes players bring out the worst in their opposition. seemingly a sure-fire way to do this is to kick their attacking players.

iniesta did go down very easily

the one where van bommell went in for a challenge, iniesta went flying to ground holding his shin and screaming in pain, realised the ref hadnt called the foul so quickly jumped up and checked into van bommell.

a few other times iniesta seemed to go down with little or no contact.

If Spain play beautiful football I'm becoming a rugby fan.  They scored 8 goals in 7 matches and every Spain match I watched was dull.  Iniesta and Xavi are so overrated in my opinion.  Good technical players but nothing to set the heart racing.  Germany, Argentina, Uruguay, and even the Netherlands (at times) were far more attractive footballing sides. 

 
now now i never said i hate him (theres a thread of who i hate in the english forums ) i dont blame him for that debacle

just pointing out what i thought

Exaggeration with a touch of hysteria there El Nino

I thought the ref did well, it was a tough final, both sides had decent chances, the slightly better side won. Holland learnt from the German game that they had to be in their faces or be denied possession. Fair enough. It was tough but not over violent to me.

The only thing I'd like cracked down on is players "assaulting" the ref. Leave it just to the captain

Seems odd to me that, even though Spain won, people are still b!tching about how hard done they were and how "violent" the Dutch were.

It was a well taken goal,, well done, and enjoy your time to the fullest bro

Double fixed

 Qualtiy corrections!

The amount of ridiculousness in this thread is amazing. The Dutch complaining about the referee? They should be counting their lucky stars they didn't lose the game by default, that's how bad they were. A sh*tload of unnecessary fouls (players going passed and then getting kicked just as a 'reminder', etc), some very violent, and one you'd end up going to jail for if you did it on the street. I don't really know what people would expect the Spanish to do when they were having lumps kicked out of them for most of the game.

And don't give me this 'it's a physical game, we're not gonna let them pass the ball all day'. Watch Paraguay's first half against Spain (best half anyone's played against them) - high pressing all over the field, constant pressure on the main ball players, effective closing down of passing lanes, and threatening pace up front. Without any display of overly physical aggression, bad fouling or cynicism. Unfortunately for them, they ran out of steam and couldn't continue with that in the second half, and Spain got a bit more time and space to work with.

El-Nino, I think your (relative) youth is coming to the fore here.  This Spanish team is a good team but I wouldn't rate it against the 1986 Argentina team, the 1982 Brazil team, the 1998 France team and so on.  In terms of simulation they come close to the 1990 German team though!  My point is simple: Xavi and Iniesta may be good players, but they are not great.  They are not players who can take a game by the (metaphorical) scruff of the neck and boss it single-handedly (note I am not talking as a team, but single-handedly).  Great players can.  In a way I think Spain were fortunate to be in a tournament with waning teams (France, Italy, England), defensively naive teams (Argentina, Uruguay), and (perhaps) one-dimensional teams (Holland, Brazil).  My team of the tournament was Germany because they played beautiful football.  Football that was exciting, enthusiastic, fair, and determined.  They played with attacking intent and desire.  This is the type of football most fans want to see succeed.  They scored and immediately tried to score again.

I think the quality of individual play at this tournament has been disappointing.  None of the expected big stars fired (Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi, Torres) and while I accept Muller and Forlan were really excellent, I don't accept that Sneijder or Villa were exceptional.  Maybe they stood out due to the absence of great football from others.

My take on a lot of the analysis of the World Cup is that a lot of people regurgitate the views of journalists who have an agenda before the game is even played.  The people determined to praise Ronaldo (three man-of-the-match awards!), Messi, Xavi etc etc irrespective of what they do.  A lot of football fans also seem determined to show how clever they are by repeating these same pronouncements.  I just call the games the way I see them - not trying to score points by mentioning the important names ("must praise Xavi, Iniesta, Villa").  Instead, I thought one of the best players for Spain was Ramos, and of course Navas when he came on and actually played football!  Modern football is all about image - and the desire to idolise Rooney, Torres, Messi, Ronaldo blinds people to the reality.  For example Ronaldo was nowhere near the best Portugese player - let alone a man of the match winner.

This is just simply wrong. They are the best two midfielders in the world by a long, long way, and have been completely and utterly dominant for the past 3-4 years, and are probably the best midefield duo the world has seen in the last 20 years (although neither was at their best in the World Cup, understandable since both had been injured in the latter stages of the season, but who even mentiones that, eh?). The teams they play for have lost (Barcelona and Spain), hmm, maybe 10 games in total in the last 3 seasons? out of perhaps 200-odd they'd played in that period. But of course, that's not a sign of greatness. Would have been exactly the same if Carrick and Fletcher were playing for those teams.

And yes, the Germans, so deserving of winning this World Cup. So full of attacking intent that they even managed to have one shot on target against Spain. Brilliant football to watch, that. Clearly robbed of the final by those unattractive Spanish thugs who barely mustered some 20 shots on goal in the game, the cynical bastards that they are (and who, by the way, averaged most shots per game than any other team in the World Cup this time around). The reality is that the Spanish won tis World Cup playing with many of its best players coming back from an injury (Torres, Iniesta, to a lesser extent Xavi) and in poor t average form, and still won without too much hassle. But clearly, it's just their luck everyone else was more crap than them.

We really need a facepalm emoticon for this forum.

SiNZ2010-07-13 12:57:54

El gradapura, you probably cut and pasted your second paragraph from a UK newspaper site.  I think you'll find people will be talking about the Germany games against Argentina and England as their memories of this tournament, maybe Holland v Brazil,  before they mention any of the Spanish games.  (Spain v Portugal was execrable.)  And in the pantheon of footballing stars I don't think Xavi and Iniesta will be mentioned in the same breath as the truly greats.  But that doesn't deny they are fine players.

Cantona forever2010-07-13 12:54:46