Spain may not have hit their peak during the World Cup, but their win is a win for real football, a win for their maintenance of principles, of playing the game the right away.
This is a team of superb technical proficiency, of patient and incisive football, who can also handle themselves physically, as they had to against a Dutch team intent on stopping football being played.
It was also a coronation completed, after four years of impressive results.
But it is sticking to principles which makes the Spanish victory all the more satisfying. The Netherlands and Brazil are two teams who have, in more recent times, displayed a patent betrayal of the football we have known these countries best for.
So much for “Total Football” and “Jogo Bonito”.
Johann Cruyff has publicly slammed the current Dutch side for their cynical tactics in the final. And he’s not wrong.
In the deepest of ironies, this is exactly what happened in the 1974 World Cup that catapulted the Oranje to world football fame. Brazil, a shadow of the greatness of the first three World Cup wins, were appallingly negative in the 1974 tournament.
The Dutch win over Brazil in the decisive game that sent them into their first final was greeted with relief and acclamation by many, so appalled they were by Brazil’s tactics in that tournament and particularly that game.
It’s gone full circle, that’s for sure.
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