World Cup 2010: The Final: Spain 1-0 Netherlands AET

In the end it was kinda fitting that Spain won 1-0 with a goal from Andres Iniesta. For me he was their best player in the tournament and so deserved his moment of glory. The Dutch will whinge long and hard about the manner of the goal - the move started with a possible foul on winger Elia, and even more plausibly, the award of a goal kick instead of a corner when Sneijder's free kick took a deflection off Cesc Fabregas. But at the end of the day, their strong arm tactics, especially in the first half should have lead to them playing with a maximum of nine players, maybe even eight or seven. And of course they had their own chances to have won the game, such as Robben's when Casillas made a save with the merest of touches with the toe end of his boot.

There are all manner of new records now after the Spanish win. I'd just mention two if I may - Spain are now the lowest scoring winners of the World Cup - just eight from their seven games; and they are also the first team to go on and win the tournament after losing their first game. We also have our first new winners of the World Cup since France in 1998. All in all, I think that the final was symptomatic of the way that football has gone in recent years (or maybe as it has always been?) in that the less gifted team was able to achieve a certain parity by the use of some strong arm tactics. We saw several dreadful tackles, notably Nigel De Jong's which doubled as an impromptu audition for the next Karate Kid movie and quite how Van Bommel managed to stay on the pitch is beyond me - as is so often the case, the only red card that was delivered was so after a soft second booking - no matter what can be said about "well he did raise his hands", contact was minimal between John Heitinga and the eventual Spanish hero Iniesta. But who cares? Football won out in the end...

Spain 1-0 Netherlands

Iniesta, 116

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