स्पेन अरे वर्ल्ड Champions

How the 2010 South Africa World Cup played out.

The first round of the competition started with a few complains about the ball and the Vuvuzelas. The Vuvuzelas is an instrument that is blown as part of the entertainment during soccer matches in South Africa. Both the field players and the goal-keepers complained about the ball and we saw a few very strange ball bounces. For the Vuvuzelas, they were said to be very noisy by the players and they disturb during the game. Fifa though made a decision to keep the Vuvuzelas. It was part of the South African tradition and they were the people who were hosting the world cup.
When the preliminary round was over, one of the major news was that only one of the six African teams made it out of the first round. Major disappointment indeed, considering the fact that this was suppose to be their world cup. The other major news was that the defending world cup champions, Italy did not make it out of the first round. The South Americans did very well in the first round with all five teams from the continent advancing from the group stages. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay advanced as group leaders.

From group A , Uruguay turned out to be the better of the four teams with their major victory coming when they defeated home side South Africa by 3 goals to nil in their second outing. The rest of their match results were 0-0 tie with France and a one nil victory over Mexico.
Mexico was the second qualifier from this group after securing a two nil victory over France in match day two. They tie their first game against South Africa, one nil and lost their last game to Uruguay.
France was the major disappointment from this group. They had a lot of problems before and during their brief stay in the competition. The first problem was with their coach, Raymond Domenech. The players complained about his team selection when he did not call up players like Benzema into the squad. There was talk about his lack of class in how he deals with the players in general. This came from some reputable past players in the French national team. There was distraction from the Sports Minister who complained about the choice of Hotel selected by the French team. Her complain was that whereas teams like Spain and the Dutch were staying in University dormitories, the French team selected a five star hotel. Personally, I did not see any problem with their hotel selection. The players make and generate a lot of money and a five star hotel is not out of their affordable range. I thought the French though could have made a coaching change after Euro 2008.This is the reasoning behind that decision. There was a time when the French national team was not a major force in world soccer and you could make an excuse about continuity in the coaching staff. That time had passed though. France won Euro 1984 and recently the 1998 world cup and Euro 2000. They thus stand as one of the favorite nations going into any major competition. What nations that have this status do when they fail to get out of the first round as the French did in Euro 2008 is make a coaching change. Raymond Domenech himself could have offered to resign in my opinion. He had taken the team as far as he could in making the world cup finals in 2006 in Germany. The team played poorly despite a number of talented players that they had in their squad. A 0-0 outing against Uruguay was followed by a two nil defeat by Mexico and a last match two to one defeat to host nation South Africa. They ended up scoring a total of one goal in their three matches in a group that they were suppose to come out of with ease.
Host nation South Africa, I thought was going to have a hard time coming out of this group and after a 1-1 tie with Mexico in their first game, they went down 3-0 to Uruguay and beat France by 2 goals to nil to save honor. They thus became the first host nation of a World cup to fail to get out of the preliminary round.

from group B, Argentina advanced with ease as I thought they would. They got all nine points in the round, beating Nigeria 1-0, South Korea 4-1 and Greece 2-0 in their last match of the round. They did all of this without getting a goal from their ace Fifa player of the year, Messi. They thus quickly got their status back as one of the favorites to win the competition.
South Korea emerged as the second qualifier of this group. They opened up with an impressive 2-0 victory over Greece and despite losing their next match by 4-1 to favorite Argentina; they bounced back with a 2-2 tie with Nigeria to advance with a total to four points.
Greece got a third place finish in the group, bouncing back from a 2-0 defeat to South Korea to surprise the Super Eagles with a 2-1 defeat. Despite losing their last match, the got rid of the tag of never winning a world cup game in the history of participating in the competition.
Nigeria was a disappointment to me in this group. I thought they should have advance just behind the South Americans. But this was the Super-Eagles and after a heroic 1-0 defeat to Argentina, they fail to beat Greece in a match in which they were the favorites. Their last match ended in a 2-2 tie with South Korea that left them with just one point out of a total of nine. The team, I thought lacked a play maker in the mid-field and they squandered a lot of scoring chances. They got rid of their local coach that got them qualification into the world cup after easing out Tunisia. The guy they choose to replace him though was a strange choice. They got a Norwegian coach that had not done a lot with his home team, thinking a foreign coach would get them far into the competition. I am always surprise when the African nations always go out and spend a lot of money on a foreign coach and dump their local coaches when it comes to major competitions. I strongly believe that the players are the ones that would win the African nations cup or the World cup for you. There are a lot of coaches out there in all the major sporting events. But very few of them are what you can call difference makers. That is having the ability to turn a team around in a hurry. Of all the six African teams that made it to this world cup, only Algeria stayed with a local coach and they got better results than the team from Cameroon. Ghana so far in the competition seems to be the exception.

From group C, England and the USA advanced. Those were my picks to get out of this group. There were some surprises though.
The USA ended up as head of the group. That was a surprise to me. I figured them as the runners-up team. They played great though and got their campaign into great gear with a 1-1 tie with group favorite England. They drew 2-2 with Slovenia in their next match in which they came from down 2-0 to tie the game and even won it with a third goal that the referee strangely refused with an outside call. Their third match was a tough one against a resilient Algerian side in which Donovan got an extra time lone goal to get the USA its qualification into the knockout stages and first place in the group.
England advanced as runners-up, which had to be a surprise to a lot of people. On paper they looked very impressive and a lot of people picked them as one of the teams with a great chance of winning this world cup. A 1-1 tie with the USA which they blamed on a goalkeeping error was followed by a 0-0 sleeper with Algeria. They had to beat Slovenia in their last match to advance, which they did 1-0.In finishing second from this group though, the English created a lot of problems for themselves. They got a knockout game date with the Germans in a show down which I thought was going to happen in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The English team in this competition reminds me of the Dutch team during the 1990 world cup. They got into the competition as one of the clear favorites and a slow start also got them a date with the Germans in the 8th finals.
Slovenia got knock out of the preliminary stage of the competition with a third place finish.
Algeria got a point out of the competition. Their team showed a lot of fighting spirit but lack ideas going up front.

From group D, Germany and Ghana advanced as I thought they would.
The Germans started with an impressive 4-0 thrashing of Australia. Then they surprise a lot of people by losing one nil to Serbia. Klose got a strange sending off in this match and they played a major part of the game with just ten men. They then had to beat Ghana to advance, which they did and ended up topping the group with six points. The Germans looked impressive and despite dropping three points to Serbia, is still one of the favorites to go deep into the competition.
Ghana got second place in this group but made tough work out of the event. They got a great opening game victory over Serbia in a game which I thought could have gone either way. Their second match against Australia though was the strange one. They went in as favorite and got a lucky break when one of the Australians was sends off. They failed to take advantage though, and ended up with a come from behind 1-1 tie. So instead of booking their qualification in the second game, the Ghanaians had to look for help from the Australian team and hope that they do not concede a lot of goals against the Germans. That is exactly what happened. Australia surprised Serbia and Ghana conceded just one goal in its defeat against the Germans. They become the lone African team to make it out of the group stages in this world cup. Looking forward, the Ghanaian team plays very organized, but they have a problem scoring goals.
Serbia, I think was the unlucky team in this group. They did the tough part of the work in the group by beating the mighty Germans,then unexpectedly fell 1-2 to Australia in a game in which a victory could have given them qualification.
Australia has their opening defeat to the Germans to blame for their early exit in the competition. They bounced back well to pick up four points that was not enough to see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.

From group E, it was Holland and Japan that qualified.
Holland was the class of the group as expected and they breeze through without dropping a point, beating Denmark 2-0, Japan 1-0 and Cameroon 2-1.
Japan was a surprise second in the group because of report of their poor form leading into the competition.They got their qualification though with an opening 1-0 victory over Cameroon,a one to zero setback to Holland and a convincing 3 to 1 victory over Denmark in their last outing.
Denmark, I thought would be the team competing with Cameroon for the second spot. They started with a 2-0 loss to Holland. Bounced back with a 2-1 victory over Cameroon and then surprising fell to Japan in the last match to get knocked out of the competition.
Cameroon was one of the African teams that were supposed to go far into the competition. I picked them to finish second in this group just behind Holland. The team had problems qualifying for the world cup in the first place picking up just one point out of a possible four to start their qualifying campaign. Coach Paul Le Guen was brought in from France and he did a wonderful job to get the team to qualify for the world cup. That did not solve the problems that the team had though. The African nation’s cup saw them go out in the quarter finals stage but there was high hopes going into the world cup. Those hopes were shattered though as the team fell 0-1 to Japan, 1-2 to Denmark and then 1-2 to Holland to exit the competition with a total of zero points. They became the first team to be eliminated in this world cup. French sports television channel “Infosport” must have repeated “le Cameroun est le premier pays a etre éliminé de ce mondiale” about a hundred times. The lions failed to pick up a point for the first time in their six world cup appearances. Who to blame? Back home people were blaming the coach. There was an awesome news conference just after the Lions lose their first game of the competition against Japan. One of the journalists asked Paul Le Guen what they Cameroonian people have to do to get a victory for his team. They said that he has secured a huge salary for himself, big bonuses for his players and excellent working conditions for his team. It was quite fun seeing the replay later on TV. I do not think that the coach is the problem though. The team needs some talented players. You look at the mid field position and there was no play maker there. The entire team consisted of players that are based overseas and there in lies some of the problem. Soome of the African players that play in teams overseas are forced to play out of their original positions. You have a talented offensive midfielder like Mbia who has been forced first to play as a holding midfielder and later on as a defense man. The team needs to grow some local talent but there is also a draw back in that because the local league is poorly run. No infrastructure, poorly paid players and an eroding fan base.

From group F, Paraguay and Slovakia advanced into the knock out stages of the competition.
Paraguay qualified well from the South American zone and after holding Italy in their opening match to a one all tie, went on to defeat Slovakia by 2 goals to nil and played a goalless tie with New Zealand to finish head of group.
Slovakia was the surprise second team to qualify. After an opening 1-1 draw with underdog New Zealand, they went on to draw one all with New Zealand and then pull the shocker of the competition by beating Italy 3-2 in a thriller that saw the defending world champions out of the competition.
New Zealand finish third in this group and that to me is a good overall result from this team. They picked up points against all three teams in their group and finished ahead of the Italians in a group in which people expected them to finish dead last.
The Italians got a lot of negative press at home before heading to South Africa and the press turned out to be right.The Italian press put it this way."You are going into a world cup final with no Del Piero, no Francesco Toti,and no Luca Toni".In their thinking those were too many nos. I thought the Italians were not going to repeat as world champions, but never in my wildest dreams did I see them being knocked out of the opening rounds and to finish dead last in their group. They started out slowly with a one all tie with Paraguay, then got another one all tie with New Zealand and then came the 2-3 shock lost to Slovakia. After the first two draws, I was not worried because the Italians are traditional slow starters in some of their world cup competitions,picking up steam as the competition rolls along. It was a shame to see them exist so soon though because they bring a lot of excitement into the world cup with their large fan base and combative style of play.

From group G, Brazil and Portugal advanced to the group stages.
The Brazilians are one of the favorites to carry home the main prize and everybody expected them to finish head of group which they did. An opening 2-1 victory over North Korea was followed by a 3-1 defeat of Ivory Coast and later on a goalless tie against Portugal,giving them 7 out of a possible 9 points. Their victory over Ivory Coast though was tainted with a controversial second goal that saw Luis Fabiano controlled the ball twice with his hands before hitting it to the back of the net. Play maker Kaka also got a red card in a very tensely contested match.
The Portuguese finished second in this group with an opening 0-0 tie with Ivory Coast. They put a lot of their problems behind them with a 7-0 thrashing of North Korea that saw Cristiano Ronaldo scored for the first time in two year for his country. They then pulled out a goalless tie with Brazil for their last match in this group of death.
Ivory Coast carried some of the African hopes going into the competition, but I thought they got a tough break being pulled into this group. A goalless tie with Portugal, a 1-3 defeat to Brazil and 3 goals to zero defeat of North Korea saw them exiting the competition with their heads held high but still falling short of expectations.
North Korea ended up last in this group falling 1-2 to Brazil, 0-7 to Portugal and then 0-3 to Ivory Coast.

From group H, Spain and Chili advanced into the next stage of the competition.
Spain headed the group with six points. The surprise here was that they drop three points to Switzerland in their opening game of the competition. A 2-0 victory over Honduras and a 2-1 victory over Chili saw them through.
Chili to me was the surprise of this group. They opened with two victories to head the group before falling to Spain in their last match to finish second. I thought that they lose a little bit of their cool in that game and that is what cost them first place in this group.
Switzerland pulled the big upset over Spain and raised all types of hope about qualifying. They then went on to lose 1-0 to Chili and finish their last game with a 0-0 tie with Honduras to finish third in this group.
Honduras had a decent competition despite their last place finish. Their high point was holding Switzerland to a goalless tie thus preventing them from advancing into the group stages.

Round of Sixteen
The break down of the teams that made it to the quarterfinals looked like this. Five teams out of a total of 13 from Europe, one team out of six from Africa, two teams out of three from the North American zone, a perfect five out of five teams from South America and two teams out of five teams from the Asian zone.
For this knockout stage of the competition,the results were as follows; Uruguay –South Korea:2-1,Ghana-USA:2-1,Germany-England:4-1,Argentina-Mexico:3-1,Holland-Slovakia2-1,Spain-Portugal:1-0,Brazil-Chili:3-0,Paraguay-Japan:0-0:5-3 penalty kicks,.

Uruguay got both of its goals from Suarez to see it through to the quarterfinals of the competition. South Korea gave them a tough battle, with a tie of the game in the second half at one all before the late Uruguay winner.

The Ghana-USA match-up was a much anticipated one especially in the African Continent were the Ghanaians happened to be the lone African team to make it into this stage of the competition. Boateng opened the scoring in the tenth minute in a beautiful goal that held up through the first half until late in the second half. Loudon Donovan equalized for the US and the match ended up in a one all tie during regulation. Thirty minutes of extra time was added and it is during the first 15 minutes that star player Gyan scored with a left foot strike to give the Ghanaians the victory. They thus became the third African team to advance into the quarterfinals of the World cup after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.
The Germany-England showdown turned out to be a thrashing by the Germans. England’s slow start in the preliminary rounds got them this match up that I though was going to happen maybe in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The Germans started fast with goals from Klose and Podolski in the early first half to put them up two nil. The English team came back though with a good header from Mathew Upson to cut the lead to 2-1. Then controversy set into the match. A great long distance strike from Frank Lampard hit the cross bar, then cross the line for what was to be the equalizer. Both the referee and the linesmen did not see the ball which television replay showed clearly crossed the line. The English would argue that with a 2-2 tie they could have return from the locker room with more confidence. There has been talk about introducing video replay into the game but for the next world cup, Fifa has opted to go with extra-linesmen instead. That to me would not solve the problem.
Anyway the Germans came into the second half and got two goals from Thomas Muller to put the game out of reach of the English. Final score 4-1.Overall, controversy aside the Germans were the better side. England with all their star players never did get into this world cup that they were favored to win. Disappointed, yes I am pretty sure that the England fans are disappointed.

Argentina got two goals from Carlos Tevez, the second one a long distance beauty to get up two nil in the first half. Higuan Gonzalez added a third in the second half to make it 3-0 before Mexico reduced the score-line to 3-1. Mexico put up a good show but I think they just got beat by a better team.

The Dutch got their goals from Ajen Robben in the first half and Wesley Sneijder in the second to go up two nil. A late Vittek penalty kick made it final score 2-1.I listened to this one over the radio. Going into the match, I thought that the Dutch were going to win it.

Spain got a lone goal from David Villa to give them a deserving one nil victory over Portugal. This game was dominated by Spain who monopolized possession of the ball. The Spaniards are going to be difficult to beat because of their style of play and this game was a clear example. The Portuguese did not see a lot of the ball and they had few scoring chances. The Portuguese team still has the same problem that it had going into Euro-2008 and that is their star player plays the role of a striker. The problem with this is that he needs other players to supply him with the ball and without seeing a lot of balls, the Portuguese were dead in this match. You look at the last generation of Portuguese players and their main star man was Luis Figo who played in the mid-field position. He thus could create goals for himself as well as create for his teammates which he did with all the attention that he was getting in the mid-field. Just look at the Spanish team and though David Villa has been the star player for the Spaniards, you cannot concentrate on him. Xavi Hernandez and Iniesta are the ones doing all of the damage from the mid-field position.

Brazil continued their world cup run with goals from Guan, Robinho and Luis Fabiano to beat Chili 3-0 in a match that they completely dominated. They showed speed, great ball possession and organization in advancing to the quarterfinals stage of the competition. After this display a lot of people were thinking about handing over the trophy to them. I happened to be one of those supporters.

The Paraguay-Chili game, I listened to this one over the radio. The game ended up in a 0-0 tie during regulation and extra-time still did not produce a goal. The dreaded penalty shoot-out separated the teams with Paraguay netting all their penalty kicks and Japan missing one out of the four that they took. 5 goals to 3 was the final score of the game after penalty shoot outs

Round of Eight

The teams that met for the quarterfinals were as follows, Holland versus Brazil, Uruguay versus Ghana, Argentina versus Germany and Spain versus Paraguay. So far into the competition we still have Ghana from Africa, Holland, Germany and Spain from Europe, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America. The advantage has so far in the competition stayed with the South Americans with four teams, Europe has three remaining and Africa has one.

The first match up fitted the Dutch against Brazil.Going into this game I did not think that the Dutch team was going to be a problem for Brazil. Brazil was one of the super favorites and they had defeated the Dutch the last two times that they met in the knock out stages of the world cup. The Dutch got the victory though by 2 goals to one. They would move on to play Uruguay in a winnable semi-finals game on Tuesday the 7th of July that could see them make the finals of the competition for the first time since 1978.The best soccer playing nation never to have won the world cup. That might just be about to change. Getting into the game itself, for some reason the Brazilians seemed agitated during the start of the match. Robinho was angry at the referee during the early part of the first half and that continued during the second half. The Brazilians got an early goal ruled out for offside and then a Robinho opening goal in the 10 minute that beat the offside trap. Score line was one goal to nil in favor of Brazil. They continued to dominate the Dutch but there was something missing from the Brazilians. They were missing a lot of combination passes that they easily put together against Chili. They went into the break though still leading by a goal to nil. In the second half though, the Dutch woke up big time. Wesley Sneijder got in their first goal from a free kick which the Brazilians were giving away a lot. Bastos was very guilty in this department and even picked up a yellow card and Dunga their coach wisely substituted him though late into the second half before he could pick up a red card. This first goal by the Dutch saw the usually cool Julio Ceasar come out of his line and totally missed the in coming ball with a defender up his face. Things were to get worse. Sneijder added a second in the 63 minute of play and the Brazilian team started to panic, I think. In their past two world cup match ups in 1994 and 1998, it was the Dutch that had to play from behind to tie the game. In 1994 they came down from 2-0 to tie before losing 2-3 after a Branco winner. In 1998, Brazil went up 1-0 early in the first half and the Dutch did not get their equalizer until in the late 80 minutes of play in that game. The match went into a goal less extra time and then penalty shootout that the Brazilians won.
In this 2010 world cup game, after the Dutch went up 2-1, the Brazilians just seem to run out of ideas. Felipo Lopez made things worse for his side by committing a bad foul that got him thrown out of the game with 15 minutes left in regular play. Each time the Brazilians got the ball into the Dutch side of the field, there were at least five Dutch players surrounding the attacking player. During the dying minutes of this game, it even looked like the Dutch did not want to add on to their score-line. The place that I was watching the game had for some strange reason turned into a Dutch crowd. People complained that the Brazilians had already painted their streets ready for the winning parade.So did the Brazilians deserved their tag going into this competition as superfavorites.On paper yes,but they failed to show that during the match in which they were eliminated.If you are wondering how then should a superfavorite exict a world cup final look at the teams upset defeat to Italy in 1982 and to France in 1986.It took something extraordinary from the opposing team to get the Samba boys out of those world cup competitions.

For the Ghana versus Uruguay match up,the Ghanaians got the game going with a tenth minute goal from their Inter-Milan player, Mountari. The teams took turns dominating the match that went into the break with Ghana up 1-0.Uruguay equalized through a Diego Forlan beauty of a free kick. That got his tally to three goals in the competition. Play ended though at 1-1 after 90 minutes. The Ghanaians were headed for their second extra-time play to try and advance into the next stage of this world cup competition. The first part of the extra-time came and went with few scoring chances from both teams,but it was during the second part of the extra-time that the Ghanaians took control of the game. It was as if somebody had told them to avoid penalty shootouts. They dominated possession by a wide margin during this half and got the break that they needed to become the first African team to advance to the semi-finals of a world cup. It all happened during the last minute of the additional two minutes of added time. During a goal mouth struggle a Ghanaian header from close range was heading to the back of the net for what could have been their victory goal when star forward Luis Suarez from Uruguay used both of his hands to play the role of goalkeeper. Good new for the Ghanaians, right? WRONG. They were a number of ways in which Suarez action could have been good news for the Ghanaians. The first was if the game was in its earlier stages and the referee’s action of sending him off and awarding a penalty kick could have been great. Also I wonder whether earlier on in the game, Suarez does not let that ball go in. He gets to miss the semi-finals of the game and he could possibly get more suspension from Fifa. It could also have been good news for the Ghanaians if the penalty kick was converted. Star player Gyan, who had during earlier games converted twice from the penalty spot, step into this one and despite having the goal-keeper heading the wrong way, hit the crossbar with his kick. A lot of people thought that he hurried his kick. The game thus went into penalty shootouts. The out come of the penalty shootout justified why Ghana fought so had to win the game in extra time. They converted only two of the four penalty kicks that they took, while Uruguay converted on four out of the five kicks that they took. The final score was four goals to two in a game that would be remembered for a long time. Uruguay thus advances to the semi-finals stage of the world cup for the first time, I believe since 1970 in Mexico where they were eliminated by Brazil. Star man Gyan because of his youthful age of 24 I think does not for the moment realize what a great chance that he was presented with. There is a feeling when you are young to think that there would be more opportunities in the future but life does not work out that way. Moments like the one presented to this young man do not come often and I kind of feel bad for him. You look at the performances of Africans teams in the world cup and history is not on his side. Nigeria for example made it out of the world cup preliminary rounds in their first two outings in the finals but have struggled during their last two. Senegal, the second African team to make it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition, has not been to the world cup since. Cameroon, has been to the world cup finals,now for the six time. Their best performances though, came in their first two outings. Picking up three draws in 1982 and making the quarterfinals in their second outing in 1990. Since then, in their last four outings in the world cup, the lions have failed to advance past the group stages.
Ghana was making their second outing, a great one,after also making it out of the group stages in their first outing in 2006. It remains to be seen whether they ever get to repeat their performances in the past in another world cup final.

Germany beat Argentina by four goals to nil to advance to the semifinals and the Germans were one of my picks to make it this far. They got first half goals from klose and Muller and added two additional goals in the second half to complete the rout of Argentina. This score line is a little bit surprising to me considering the way that Argentina has been playing so far in the competition. Anyway the Germans completely dominated the match and they seem to be moving towards their fourth world cup title. In this match, I kind of felt bad for Argentina,with their proud legendary coach and admired the way that they held themselves throughout the match during the defeat. They did not resort to bad play or picking up silly red cards to try and disrupt the match.

Spain beat Paraguay one nil to advance to the semi finals where they would face Germany in what would be a rematch of their Euro-2008 meeting. The match itself was tough due to the manner in which the Paraguay team plays. Their philosophy seems to be to defend first and try to surprise the opponent on a counterattack. The match got some drama during the second period when Paraguay got a penalty kick in what could have given them the lead. Iker Casillas pull off a beauty of a save to keep the scores at 0-0. Moments later, it was Spain’s turn to get a penalty kick that Alonso converted initially but the penalty kick was refused because he came to a complete stop before converting it. His second attempt was stopped by the keeper. David Villa settled things though for Spain in the 83 minute of play, slotting in a rebound from an Iniesta attempt that had hit the goal post.

Semi-finals stage of the Competition.
The four teams that made it to the semi-finals were Germany, Holland, Uruguay and Spain.So for the break down into the various continents, Europe had three teams remaining while the South Americans had one left.The Europeans had thus turned around what in the quarterfinals stage of the competition seems like a South American show into a European show. For the South Americans, though they still had Uruguay left in the competition, the last round had to be a disaster to them. Favorites Brazil and Argentina had been humbled together with sleeper Paraguay.

The first semi-finals saw tournament surprise run team Uruguay going against a confident Dutch team. The Dutch open scoring early through Van Bronckhorst after 18 minutes of play through a long distance beauty of a goal that held until the 43rd minute when Uruguay star man Diego Forlan stroke in an equalizer from around 25 meters away from the goals post to tie the scoring. The Dutch stepped up pressure in the second half and got goals from Wesley Sneijder and Ajen Robben to go up 3 goals to one and put them in a good position to make it to the finals. Things got interesting though when Uruguay pull one back in extra-time to make the score 3 to 2. That is where it ended and the Dutch are heading to their third finals in the history of the world cup and their first since they were there in 1978 in Argentina.
The second semi-finals was a rematch of Europe 2008 finals that saw Germany play against the Republic of Spain. The score in that game was one goal to nil in favor of Spain and the score of the rematch ended in the same manner,one goal to nil also in favor of Spain. For some reason,it seems as if Spain does not bring out the best in the German national team.In this particular world cup semi-finals the German team did not come out firing as they did against Argentina in the quarterfinals. They created few scoring chances, like zero in the first half of play. Spain dominated possession of the ball as they have been doing throughout this competition and got their winning goal in the second half of play through a Puyol header in around the seventy minutes of play. They could have gotten a second, but Pedro opted to go for glory by himself instead of passing the ball to a wide open Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres has not been having a great time in this world cup and the coach brought him in later in the game as a sub. Anyway it is all set for an all European final between Holland and Spain. Both teams would be trying to get their first world cup triumph. This would be Hollands third final and Spains first in world cup play. So with Spain meeting Holland in the final a trend has been broken that was in place since 1966 when the winner of the world cup has alternated between a European and a South American team. This was suppose to be the year of the South Americans,but things did not work out quite well for them.Good thing that they get to host the next competition in four years time in Brazil.

Third place match
The third place game is the small finals and it fitted Germany against Uruguay. With the pressure of winning the world cup out of the way the teams produce some attractive play and the game ended in a 3 to 2 victory for Germany. Germany got goals from this world cup new find, Thomas Muller in the first half and from Jansen and Ghedira in the second half.Uruguay got its goals from Diego Forlan and Giovanni for their 2 goal scoreline.

The Final Match
The final turned out to be a tense affair. Part of that was due to the fact that the game went into extra time before a winner could be decided. Spain ended up winning the game in extra time, through a 116 minute strike from man of the match Andres Iniesta. Holland had to adjust their style of play in this match, because the Spaniard refuse you access to the ball. They resorted to some hard fouls and they paid for that when John Heitinga was sent off in the second period of extra time. Holland,I think, had some chances to win the game in regulation. Two misses from Arjen Robben, one of them really unbelievable that could have given the Dutch the lead. They thus returned home as runners up for the third time in the history of the competition.
Spain are world champions and rightly so in this competition. They too had chances to win the game in regulation and missed them. They did step up their game though during the extra period of play and they deserve the goal that they got to win the match.
How do the Spaniards compare though to recent world cup champions?I would put them in the same category like the Italians four years earlier in 2006.They were very solid in defense, conceding just two goals through the course of the competition.They won though without scoring a lot of goals or doing something extraordinary for which they would be remembered,managing just 8 goals in winning the competition. So their shortcoming has to be lack of explosiveness. The team though plays very attractive soccer, moving forward all the time. They did not resort to any type of negative play throughout all their matches and totally dominated possession of the ball. That was their trademark.

The Awards
Best young player of the tournament went to German forward, Thomas Muller. He also got the golden boots award for his five goals scored. He was tied in this category with Diego Forlan, David Villa and Wesley Sneijder, but he had a better assist rate compared to his rivals. Diego Forlan got best player of the tournament. I for one think that Iniesta of Spain should have gotten it for delivering the trophy for his country. Forlan had a wonderful tournament, taking his underdog team all the way to the semi-finals. But he missed out of the finals though, and except in a case were somebody has an extraordinary tournament; I think that the best player of the competition should go to a player who participates in the final match of the competition.