What Makes a Team Worst in Their League

A glance at a completed league table of any football league in the world (although it might be applied to other sports as well) would reveal the presence of a team at the top of the table which is the champion of that league in that particular season. However, if we scroll down towards the wrong end of the table, the part of the table in which it is likely to be analyzed and observed as meticulously as the top of the table, would reveal the presence of a team languishing at the bottom of the league table. This team, usually relegated to a lower division alongside two or three teams above them, would be considered the worst team in that league. Sometimes fans like you and me start to wonder what exactly are the reasons for that team to be the one which is the worst team in the division and has to contend with the proverbial “Wooden Spoon Award” in the league.

Just like any other phenomena in this world, in which there is/are causes and precursors, there are reasons and triggers that make a team worst in their league. I would categorize those reasons into two categories and that would be financial reasons, which constitutes a very large chunk of why a team is the worst in their league as well as the club's personnel's abilities as well as others. Although it seems that the reasons that will be listed in the following paragraphs seem to be standing on its own, each of them is not mutually exclusive and they might apply concurrently in a football team.

The first and arguably one huge aspect which makes a team worst in their league is the financial aspects of the team, and the importance of this is amplified many-folds in the modern game whereby business is increasingly more and more intersected with football compared to politics unlike in the past whereby the latter dominates football much more than business. But now, it is so different, as the financial aspect of a team is almost the sole yardstick to measure how the team would perform in a league or any other competitions. Football, just like any other sports is supposed to be one of the rare avenues to at least momentarily escape from the harsh reality of life, at least for 90 minutes at a time, but just like how politics have been so close do dominate football, business have clung on the same manner to football. Football clubs have become more of a business tools for conglomerates out there and we have seen how many top football clubs nowadays are being led and operated by figures who have little or nothing to do with football at all. Sometimes clubs are being taken over to increase the profile of the club by pumping millions and even billions, and even unlimited budget such as what Manchester City are enjoying right now, and they might look to sell the club on when the sale value as well as the reputation of the club has skyrocketed.

The above is actually another debate for another occasion, but the point here is that not every team in a league enjoys such financial concessions such as what have been highlighted above. For every Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Internazionale, there are Messina, West Brom, Tenerife, and recently Portsmouth. In other words, there is some kind of financial disparity existing between the haves and the have-not in a football league, and the phenomenon of foreign conglomerate ownership of top teams as stated above have served to widen the financial gap. Players, who are the most crucial human resources of a football team, are being increasingly bought for astronomical amount of money, such as how Real Madrid broke the record for most expensive transfer twice in just a few days when they bought Kaka for 65m Euros and then Cristiano Ronaldo for 80m Euros. This, together with the massive bidding campaigns of players from the wealthiest of the wealthy clubs inadvertently and perhaps unavoidably inflate the prices of players in the transfer market. Clubs that do not enjoy the massive financial backings would suffer since they might not be able to afford the prices as well as the kind of wage demands of the players who are capable of carrying the small clubs up to the next level.

Even if the small clubs possess good players or young players with potential, and that they are able to become some sort of a “selling club” to the big spenders (eg. West Ham, Sporting Lisbon), it is unlikely that the huge amount of money earned would be able to carry them on to the next level as they have to frantically sign another player as a replacement or that season will be a jeopardy, and there will not be a sufficient time to unearth a replacement from within in such a short time. Some small clubs might not even have the luxury of spending the money earned from the transfer as they have to pad up their precarious financial state and thus they go from bad to worse. Basically, the team that is the poorest (ie. With the lowest bank balance), as well as the team that fails to churn out promising players to be sold off to the big clubs who are willing to pay good money for them will be the worst in the league.

The second reason would be mismanagement of the club. I mentioned about Portsmouth, and it is well known that the English club recently faced a series of devastating financial problems that almost resulted in the historical club being forced to cease its long existence. The financial problems that they got themselves into actually resulted in a mismanagement of the club's finances in which to keep things simple, they simply “spend beyond their means” with artificial budget sired from debts. Actually, mismanagement is commonly tied up to the finances of a club, although there will be more on other types of “mismanagement” later on, and debts is the primary component of mismanagement occurring in the footballing sphere. As I mentioned above, top teams and even mediocre teams especially in the English Premier League are constantly being taken over by foreign investors whether for business purposes for otherwise, and most of the time, they would implement a policy of “spend spend spend” to make their way to the top of the footballing universe. However, and this is funnily coincides with the fact that more and more of those foreign owners hail from the USA, and it is well known worldwide that Americans sometimes have a motto of “spend now, pay later” and these big spending football clubs adhere to that mentality as well. While they finance their way to the top by buying players, they are mortgaging, and I dare say gambling the future of these clubs away by spending now with debts, and just hope that the team does well to clinch titles or at least the UEFA Champions League regularly to continue on financing the debts incurred to artificially finance the club in what I would dub an overdrive financial mode.

Things would go relatively well as long as they are able to maintain the good on-pitch form such as how Manchester United are able to continue on to win titles and to finance the club comfortably despite a well known massive debt surrounding the club. However, not all clubs are as lucky as them. In 2002, Leeds United were massively and artificially financed with debts, and when they failed to preserve their life support by missing out on regular Champions League qualification, they became embroiled in spiraling debt culminating in their relegation in 2004, and they have not been since in the Premier League up to the time of writing, almost a decade later! Same goes for Portsmouth in which they looked like a big club around 2007 and 2008, culminating in their FA Cup victory and their first ever season in Europe in the season afterward, but they were not able to build on that success to sustain themselves, debt spiraled, and the rest is history, and even if they managed to avoid extinction, they are still in turmoil right now, and they might even get relegated again in the lower division. Another club embroiled in troubles due to mismanagement would be Newcastle United under the Mike Ashley regime. He tried to implement some kind of “continental system” in which a Director of Football is to collaborate with the manager of the club and the result was disastrous with disastrous signings of inept players and they were relegated from the EPL. Leeds, Portsmouth, and Newcastle ended up becoming the worst team in their league (EPL) on the days of their respective relegation due to mismanagement of the club.

If we want to take the definition of “worst in their league” a bit further and be more specific, I would mention teams like Real Madrid and Manchester City who have not been really at the top compared to their fellow wealthy and prestigious clubs around. Many of the wealthy owners of the top football clubs around the world have been accused by many sections of the footballing universe as business people who do not really understand how to manage football clubs, and indeed there have been mismanagement going on, and although in the league table per se they are relatively well off, but considering how wealthy and big they are, as well as compared to the other clubs of a similar stature, they can be considered one of the worst. For Real Madrid, it was proven in the first Galactico Era on how quite a few mismanagement caused them many years of trophy drought despite spending obscene amount of money for superstars, but they only bought attackers such as Zidane,Beckham, and Figo, while forgetting and perhaps underestimating the importance of defense, as they sacked Fernando Hierro and then unceremoniously sold Claude Makelele to Chelsea, and not mentioning the plethora of managers they hired and sack during those years. Even until now, despite improvements such as purchasing world class defenders, they still finished last season empty handed and despite the promising appointment of Jose Mourinho as a manager, many are still skeptical, and despite the huge reputation augmented by wealth, they are still worst compared to their counterparts such as Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, and of course Barcelona.

As for Manchester City, we know that they also failed to qualify for the Champions League last season despite their massive investments on players in which they bought mostly strikers and thus they failed to enhance their reputation to attract even bigger names in football such as how their embarrassing bid for Kaka turned out to be indicated how badly they need an enhancement of reputation to rival Manchester United as the premier club in Manchester and the whole world. Thus, considering their unlimited budget, they are still the worst team out of the wealthiest clubs in Europe. It remains to be seen whether they would improve for the upcoming new season.

For mismanagement at the highest level, no one could forget Juventus of course who were caught trying to cheat by bribing referees to decide games in their favor in which to cut the story short, is known as the Calciopoli in 2006. This resulted in a few of their Serie A titles unceremoniously stripped of them, and their key players leaving the team, as well as relegated to Serie B for the 2006-07 season. Even though they were relegated to Serie B while they finished as Serie A champions in 2006, they were still the worst team in the league for that season.

Another mismanagement would be how the manager fails to put the right men at the right places. A recent example was how Cameroon, the African country expected to progress the furthest in World Cup 2010 among the other African participants. But a series of gaffe decisions such as stripping the captaincy from the long time captain Rigobert Song and then to play the new captain Samuel Eto'o on the right wing position, totally isolated from his natural position among other wrong decisions culminated in the team becoming the first African nation to be knocked out from the competition, and in the final official standing, they were the second worst team in the competition, just above North Korea.

The other reason for a team being the worst in their league would be due to the promotion-relegation system existing in most leagues in the world. There are a lot of examples on how promoted clubs from the lower division are actually too strong for that division, but they are simply too weak for the new division, and thus over the years, they continue on to go up and down the divisions, and they are nicknamed “Yo-yo clubs”. A very classic example especially in this decade in English football of such a club would be West Bromwich Albion (WBA) in which they have always been changing divisions almost annually. Thus, these clubs, as well as other clubs who clinched promotion especially through the playoff system are deemed to be too weak for the division and are likely to be the worst team in the new and upper division and thus they will immediately go back down the division and whether they comeback again like the yo-yo clubs are not relevant. The point is, a newly promoted team might be too weak for the upper division and thus they become the worst team in that division.

The last reason and perhaps the most logical of all would simply be the fact that football leagues and competitions, as well as other sports are simply competing to be the best, competing to win the competition. It is the unchangeable nature of any competitions that when there's a winner, there will always be the losers, and this applies to the leagues and competitions. All these while, I have been talking about disparities between teams, mismanagement, being too weak etc. but even in a totally competitive league, such as if a Super League consisting of the strongest teams in the whole world is to be created, there will be a team finishing at the very bottom of the league table and thus becoming the worst team in that league at the end of the season. Thus, yet another reason and it might be the reason which hit the nail in the head would be that it is simply an inevitable fact and nature of a league or competition that cannot be escaped. No matter how competitive or closely fought a league is, there will always be the worst out off the competing bunch, full stop.

Thus, despite the plethora of reasons that could be stated for a team to be worst in their league such as financial strength and well being, the competency of those managing the team, how the team operates, and so on, and after all those lengthy explanations about each one of them, at the end of the day, even if all those problems do not exist at all, it is safe to conclude that no matter what, in any league/competition, there will be a team that is the worst out of the bunch, and thus any team in any league would only fight to become the winners, while avoiding the losers' spots at all costs, but there will be competing teams who will fill those positions, including one team that has to brave the tag of “the worst team in the league”.

Why Soccer is Good for Kids

Soccer is undoubtedly the biggest and most famous sport in the whole world. Its popularity exceeds all other sports with billions watching and/or playing the game worldwide. Its governing body, FIFA has the most number of member nations, and the World Cup, its flagship competition is universally considered as the biggest sporting event on the planet, eclipsing even the Olympic Games. To cut a very long story short, it is a very simple but yet very famous sport and every country, even the USA which is so resistant towards the sport have started to openly embrace the sport as one of their own. This sport is also being played by a huge number of people around the globe, and that includes kids/children all over the world, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, and social status. In the actual fact, the activity of playing soccer among kids, including random kickabouts whether on a proper soccer field, a makeshift one, a Futsal arena, or even on the streets like how many superstars such as Carlos Tevez and Thierry Henry started out when they were kids themselves are considered so normal, so widespread, that kids, and even their parents, are likely to not realize the plethora of benefits that they stand to gain, ranging from their physical well being, emotional well being, to the possibility to reach a dizzying height in life just from casually playing soccer with other kids on a good day.

Many people call soccer as a male dominated sport, and the more extreme ones would even declare that this sport should be out of bounds to the more feminine gender. However, since we live in the increasing era of emancipation between the genders, and also the increasing popularity and standard of the womens' soccer worldwide, and as the title suggests, since this is only talking about kids in general, the benefits highlighted in the following paragraphs will be applicable for boys as well as for girls.

The first benefit for the kids from playing soccer is obviously the fact that the game helps each kid to build a sense of team-work, and to constantly expose them in a team based environment. We know that soccer is one of the most team oriented sports in the world. Many people might argue that other sports such as baseball and basketball are also team oriented sports, but if we are able to quantify/measure the level of “team elements” then soccer will definitely be ranked up there relative to other sports. To cite a real life example, just look the excitement within and surrounding the NBA team Miami Heat when they managed to sign James le Bron, one of the hottest names in basketball in recent times. Just because of the acquisition of this one player, Miami Heat has been touted as the next NBA champions for the next season. This is reminiscence to a few years ago when the same team signed Shaq O'Neal from LA Lakers. Just because of him, they did win the following season's NBA championship. While the same certainly cannot be said for soccer. When a team signs one player, that one player will not be able to carry the team forward all on his own. He has to adapt to his new surroundings, his new club's tactical set-up, as well as his new team mates' style of play. The transition of the one newly transferred player will not be as smooth as the ones observable in NBA such as illustrated above. Even when a player has been successfully integrated into a team and/or a whole newly assembled squad has successfully earned a decent amount of team chemistry, one player could not do it all. Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, Leo Messi, Maradona, you name it. No player on earth will not be able to do everything on his own for the team.

The lengthy explanation above only serves to highlight how soccer is a very team oriented sport. Thus, when kids play soccer, they would learn how to work in a team. In a soccer team, each and every player has his own duties, and it is imperative that every one of them adheres to their own set rules all the time. There's no “I” in a soccer team, everyone has to work together to make the whole team functional. When there's even only one player in the team who is out of sync with his/her team mates on the pitch, the team's structure and general well-being will be in jeopardy, and the team will not function as it should be. This will definitely drill into the kids' minds that it is crucial that they think about others and not only themselves. In my opinion, this is especially important for only children in the world. Only children have always been labeled as kids who are not able to integrate well into the society when they reach adulthood, and they are also perceived to be destined as individualistic and egoistic individuals with no sense of team work at all as they supposedly have been getting whatever they want from their over-parenting parents and that they don't need to share their belongings with anybody since they do not have anybody to share anything with in the first place. Even though these harsh stereotypes and labellings have been dismissed by other groups of scholars, there are some truths in those stereotypes and soccer can help compensate the lack of sharing opportunities at home due to the absence of siblings, as these kids would learn how to work and operate in a team through the soccer matches that they participate in, and they would also learn that they cannot always get anything they want anytime, for example, they need to fight and jostle for the ball, try their best to beat the defenders or stop the strikers, and so on.

As they learn more about the game, and as these kids start caring more about winning trophies and competitions, they will learn some selfless traits from soccer. For example, when kid A has the ball around the right flank and he is surrounded by four defenders, then kid B, his team mate is waiting in the penalty area and he is minimally marked at best. Kid A has two choices, firstly, to be an egoistical hero and try to beat those defenders and to score the goal himself which he is likely to fail or secondly, to just send a pass to kid B for kid B to score a goal and win the match for his team. This is especially important in the working life as increasingly people need to work in a team, and that sometimes or even more often than how people perceive it to be, the harsh life often expects people to sacrifice their personal gains for the best of the team. Soccer prepares these kids to be those team players in an amazingly perfect, amazing, and of course fun manner.

This is also tied to the second benefit for those kids from playing soccer. It is no longer a secret that modern life is increasingly identical in meaning to “sedentary lifestyle” and that obesity and of course the problems associated with it such as diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke just to name three have officially been considered as epidemics, especially in the developed countries in which most of the time spent by people, and for kids as well, are simply between the keyboard and the chair. The all important physical exercise is increasingly considered as an activity not worth doing and that it is just a waste of time. The bare minimum exercise of an average of 30 minutes a day are considered by many, especially kids to be useless and pointless chores and that the time supposedly used for the physical exercise is better off in their minds to be spent on supposedly more productive activities such as studying for the kids. However, they fail to realize the sheer importance and necessity of doing physical exercise regularly and not only they will regret it much later in their lives when they have to gripe with a Pandora Box full of problems such as the various illnesses associated with the modern sedentary lifestyle such as diabetes and heart diseases to the various social stigma in the society against obese people.

Therefore, I feel that soccer really helps in an immense way to alleviate the kids from all those problems. When the kids play soccer regularly, they only realize it as playing a fun game with their friends. Even if they realize what I have mentioned above about the team bonding exercise provided by soccer, they are unlikely to realize that by playing soccer, these kids are doing themselves a great favor in each game day by exercising vigorously for the duration of the game. Assuming that thy play for at least 1 hour, we could just look at the statistics of professional football matches to see how players cover distances for up to 13 or more kilometers in one game! That is a great workout which would undoubtedly and markedly improve the fitness level of those kids as well as keeping themselves healthy physically and mentally. It has been proven that kids who exercise regularly tend to do much better in school compared to their more sedentary counterparts. Again, by playing soccer, the kids get a multitude of benefits, they get the fun, and they get healthy.

Thirdly, I would also like to elaborate more on the benefits of playing soccer for the mental health of the kids who play the game. It has been mentioned above on how students who exercise regularly tend to do better in school, but there is also one more important mental aspect which could be improved by playing soccer. Soccer is a simple game, and when simplified to its simplest form, it is just a game in which players who are playing the game are all constantly having one aim in mind, and that is to score goals, and of course to score more goals than the opponents. This is actually the macro and the more attacking side of the aim in football, and there is another more micro and defensive side of the game in which every single player on the pitch each has a defensive duty to regain possession when the opponents are with the ball. The tandem of both main aims in soccer means that the kids who play the game are having those aims constantly embedded into their minds. In the long run, the will to fight to reach the goal, the determination to overturn things when things are tough, as well as the occasions when they have to sacrifice their personal gains for the good of the team means that the kids will be stimulated to become a competitive, determined, and even tough individuals.

When these kids grow up, and when they eventually enter the workforce regardless of their fields of choice, they will take away with them from soccer the tough mentality and the sheer determination when they are striving towards their goals in life. This shows one great benefit from playing soccer in childhood (and even constantly in their lives later on) which could potentially span across almost if not all aspects of life.

Last but not least, and in fact one significant benefit, is simply the dazzling and lucrative opportunity for the kids to become professional soccer players. It has been assumed up to the above paragraph that the kids who play soccer will eventually go to the workforce and an impression seemed to be given that these kids will leave soccer for good once they have entered the workforce. However, that is not the case. We know that the professional soccer globally is a multi-billion dollars history in which one million Euros is considered “very cheap” and/or “very little amount” and that a top player could earn that amount in just approximately two months or even less. Like how I mentioned at the beginning on how top players such as Thierry Henry, Carlos Tevez, and Robinho just to name three started out playing soccer in their respective hometowns when they were kids and now they are the who's who of soccer. In other words, another and perhaps the most significant benefit that kids stand to gain by embracing and playing soccer is a glittering career in the professional scene.

The kids might just be playing casually with friends and/or representing their schools. It does not seem like a big deal at all to a casual and average observer. But in the professional scene exists people known as scouts who are employed by national team federations and football clubs (local or overseas) whose duties are to identify and pick out promising talents to be groomed into the final product and to serve the scouting team with distinction.

The obvious benefit of playing soccer professionally is of course in terms of finance. Many soccer players spent their childhoods in poverty, but soccer more often than not offer a way out of their plight. It is true that not many will get the chance to be the Ronaldos and Kakas of this world and earn millions of Euros annually, but even if they do not, soccer could at least provide an avenue of financial help at the semi-pro and/or amateur level. This is observed quite extensively in the countries in which soccer is the top sport such as the UK and France in which many people from policemen to binmen ply their trades in soccer on a part time basis. They could yet find their way to the top rung of soccer ladder from this route, such as how Steve Savidan, the somewhat legendary French player (who was a binman himself) would gladly testify to all aspiring semi-pro soccer players.

Even for kids who are not living in a top footballing nations such as Malta, Bhutan, and San Marino in Europe. they could easily be selected in the national teams of these nations and compete with the world's best in the European Championship against the best names in soccer such as Italy, Spain, and France. Even if they garner 0 point and even 0 goal scored, the experience of playing against the top soccer players such as Wayne Rooney, Daniele de Rossi, and David Villa is too invaluable. Thus, I would say that the biggest benefit for kids who play soccer is of course to pursue a career in soccer, whether as a top professional and be the next who's who in the sport, as well as just supplementing one's income by playing the sport on a semi-pro basis. Even for girls, fret not, as the women's scene of soccer is increasingly developing really well and the women's game is improving and garnering positive reputations as well as time passes.

We have seen how soccer is incredibly good for kids and that the benefits stated above are not mutually exclusive and that they are able to earn all of those benefits stated above all at once. Again, it is incredible and I would even say a bit spooky on how a simple sport such as soccer is simply irresistably good for the kids and how a world of benefits these kids stand to gain just from playing this game. This is the magic of the game, and the sheer impacts of soccer for kids around the world is just one little aspect of what soccer is capable of. In short, we, especially if we are soccer fans, should start thinking about educating our kids about soccer since a very early age and to encourage them to play the sport considering the plethora of benefits that they could gain from playing soccer. For the kids, let's tie up your boots' laces, bring the ball to the nearest play, and let's kick the ball around!

Time to Inreoduce Technology to Football?

The debate about the implementation of the various technologies in football such as the Hawkeye system used in tennis to determine whether the tennis ball falls into or outside of the court has been raging for quite some-time. It has died down in recent times due to the persistent unwillingness of FIFA, the world's football governing body to implement such technologies in football. Even when FIFA attempts to implement this, it has always encountered stumbling blocks especially in their voting system with the International FA Boards (IFAB) which consists of the FA (Football Association) of the various “countries” in the United Kingdom. The FA of Wales and Northern Ireland, that have veto power in the voting system always utilize their veto as they are afraid that their semi-pro leagues will be neglected as top leagues would get the top priority and have the best financial position to implement the technologies. However, this debate was re-ignited to an almost bordering to the ridiculous proportions after the last 16 round of World Cup 2010.

First, we have Argentina's 3-1 victory over Mexico, in which one of Argentina's goals from Tevez was totally offside but the linesmen and the referee gave the goal to Argentina. This incident was just a very small one compared to the second one which I am about to say, the one which arguably set the tone of the re-ignition of the wild and intense technology debate. That's none other than 1966 Wembley moment re-enacted in such a twisted manner. Frank Lampard shot towards goal from distance, hit the bar, bounced over the goal line, and out again. The referee did not consider that a goal and waved play on as the German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer caught the ball. England is arguably the most media featured team in the world. Just open any football websites and/or newspapers, especially English language ones, and there's not even a day without England somewhere in the papers. Even if there's no mention of them on the Sports pages, they would hit other pages, even front pages (Ashley and Cheryl Cole split and Terry vs Bridge anyone?). Thus, when England is the team at the end of such a refereeing error which definitely calls for the introduction of technology, we could expect an intense debate for the introduction of technology and that's what we have been getting. In any case, this implementation of technology should have continued on to be debated instead of waiting for such a high profile and most media featured team to be adversely affected by it. Along with modernity, as well as the continuing incidences of high profile errors at the very top level and not forgetting how other sports such as tennis as mentioned above have implemented it long ago, it is pertinent that technology should be incorporated into the beautiful game for the better f the sport as well as for everyone associated with it.

Firstly, the obvious reason why technology should be implemented in football is because of the aforementioned high profile incidents that are game-changing. I also remembered somewhere in 2005 or 2006 if I am not wrong, there was a similar incident whereby the then Tottenham player Pedro Mendes launched a blistering shot from distance and the then Manchester United goalkeeper Roy Carroll parried it, but replays showed that the ball had passed the goal line before Carroll clawed it out of the net into safety. There are many more incidents like this, and the teams which are adversely affected by this such as Tottenham and England, especially England will argue to the end of the world that had their goal was allowed they would have clawed the scoreline back to 2-2 at that time with Germany after being 2 goals down, and they argue that they could have gone on to win the match. For one, I have to side with the English this time as prior to that incident, England was totally dominating the game, and had that gone in, I believe that England would have gone on to win the game, provided that they continue their dominance during that 15 minute period or so until the end of the game. This shows that this kind of unnecessary and frankly preventable errors definitely twist around the results of matches. Teams that should have won, did not, and on the other hand, teams that should not have won, won the match. Thus, it is absolutely necessary for FIFA to consider implementing technology in football so that teams that deserve to win a game could win a game. This is just about justice being heralded in the professional football games at the highest levels. Not forgetting the fact that football at that level should not contain such embarrassing errors.

The second reason is simply due to the flow of time. We have heard from topics outside of football on how certain beliefs are seen to refuse to embrace the modernity (or even post-modernity) which is here whether we like it or not, and that the reasons by the adherents of those certain beliefs are all pointing towards one word “traditionalism and purism”. Alright, basically that's exactly the very same set of reasons given by Sepp Blatter, the incumbent FIFA President against the implementation of technology in football. However, as mentioned above, football is inevitably will have to take on the modern era head-on, especially considering how other sports have taken those steps to adapt and evolve along with an era increasingly laden with various technological advancements. With the increasingly often game changing errors as mentioned just now, it adds more impetus for those at the top rungs of the footballing universe to just embrace the available various technologies and improve the game such that it would minimize and even eradicate ridiculous mistakes in the game at least at the professional level.

Another reason justifying the technology's introduction to football is of course to discourage yet another increasing sad trend in football, and that's the dark arts of the game such as diving (nowadays called simulating for softer effects), blatant handballs, and also influencing a referee by acting (such as when Maradona told his teammates “Hug me, or the ref won't allow it” right after the Hand of God goal). This will move us on away from tennis, and for the incorporation of the video replays into the games. We know that if we watch the football games on television, we are always served up plenty of video replays repeatedly after each goal and/or controversial decisions. Even in the stadium itself, there's a big screen basically screening the match to the people who are somewhere in row Z (read: at the very back end and high up in the stands). However, the referee must not make a decision out of those replays and even based on what he and/or his linesmen are seeing on the big screen in the stadum, and that the referee's decision is final, and not even if he realizes his mistake later on, he won't be able to make any changes to his decision no matter what. One example of this was in the 2006 World Cup final during the famous “Zidane headbutt” incident. When the referee was busy officiating with his back facing Marco Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane, Zidane headbutted Materazzi as it is said (although even until today no one knows the exact real event) that the Italian had blurted some words about Zidane's mother and sister which did not sit well with the Frenchman. Although the incident happened with the ref's back facing them, he was able to see the incident on the aforementioned big screen in the stadium and he duly dished out a red card for Zidane. Although the referee was not supposed to use video evidence and have to see it with his own eyes, he had dished the red card, and also considering the referee's decision is final, go figure... In any case, technology did help the referee to make an informed decision.

What was proposed is simply the kind of video replay utilization used in rugby, in which each team has several chances (usually two) to contest any controversial decisions in the match. Then, the video replays will be used to judge a decision, for example whether a handball is deliberate, whether the ball has crossed the line, etc. Then the referee could overturn that decision based on the video replays. Since it has been proven in the aforementioned 2006 World Cup Final that technology has the potential to help referees to make more informed and correct decisions, why not implement it. It is true that change will undoubtedly trigger resistance to change, but that's the way it is.

Another benefit that FIFA could gain from the above implementation is just like what NFL is benefiting. During the replay assessment period when managers call for the video replay to contest a decision, there will be a short break on the game, and in NFL, usually this is used as a room for advertisements. This will undoubtedly generate even more cash for FIFA, as since it is a non-profit organization, thus more profits could be generated and more funds could be directed to FIFA projects to make football worldwide better such as its GOAL project. This will certainly go a long way in making football a better sport around the globe.

However, despite the obvious benefits that the footballing universe stand to gain from the implementation of technology in football as explained above, we have to remember that despite any arguments around the world that technology will make football a game which is what they call “too perfect” and becomes boring and one-dimensional and that we will miss all those dramas and controversies, they are in for a surprise if technology is really implemented. We know that technology itself is not perfect, and at some point there might be errors with the technology itself. Who is to say that no matter how well tested and tried technology is totally foolproof? I believe even if there's a total revamp in football such that even the referees themselves are replaced by totally cold but advanced robots, there are bounds to be errors from them sooner or later, and it won't be long before a new debate surfaces about the re-introduction of more human elements in the game.

However, I still feel that a degree of technological implementations such as the goal line technology as well as the video replays are still necessary considering how every game at the top level is such a high-stakes game right now. In short, patience is not a virtue in modern football, and that winning is virtually everything. Managers are sacked as soon as they are hired just because of a few blips of performance and not only careers are in jeopardy with defeats, but even lives are in danger. We have seen how Andres Escobar was shot after 1994 World Cup due to his own goal. Thus, it is pertinent that we remember that those dangers exist for the players, managers, and even the referees (there have been countless cases of death threats against the referees, and few notable cases such as that of Andres Frisk that they have to retire to avoid all the flak) for any wrong decisions and/or defeats. Thus, it it still necessary and would be great for the sport if FIFA could come with a grand plan to minimize those mistakes and finally augment football with the kind of technologies that have been serving other sports well.

On Thierry Henry's New York Sojourn

Thierry Henry has finally made the switch to USA's New York Red Bulls official after so many rumors being mooted even from the previous year. Thierry Henry is not just any player, he's a football player who has lit up football so much for the last decade and a half in Europe. From his breakthrough season with Monaco under Arsene Wenger, from the way he performed so well to impress the then France coach Aime Jacquet to include him into the national set-up, and went on to win the World Cup in 1998, then to his big transfer overseas to Juventus which did not end really well, and to when his Monaco manager Arsene Wenger rescued him to Arsenal, converted him into a pacy striker, and the rest is history as he contributed so much to Arsenal he deserves the title “Mr. Arsenal” and his move to Barcelona where he helped the Catalan club win the famous Treble. Towards the end of his glittering and eventful career, it has somewhat taken a dive in the past few years, especially in the season just past. He lost his first team place in Barcelona, and in the national set up, he provoked the ire of the entire Republic of Ireland for “that” handball incident in the World Cup qualifiers playoffs, and also the messy and sad (except if you are an Irish) World Cup campaign. Seems that everything that could go wrong, go wrong for the Frenchman. Thus, now he has moved away from Europe, where all those eclectic mixture of greatness and craziness are jumbled up into one for a new journey in the Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA with New York Red Bulls.

This transfer undoubtedly created such a hype that many pundits around the world have started to compare and even gauge whether this transfer will be even more hyped and impactful than David Beckham's transfer to LA Galaxy from Real Madrid in 2007. Many people are also divided on Henry's motives for the transfer, some cited monetary purposes, some cited escapism from all those things in Europe, and some other even would cite re-launching his recently flailing career on greener pastures. All these will be delved carefully by yours truly in a moment.

Firstly, many people have started to come into a conclusion that Henry agreed for the move to NY Red Bulls simply for the money, or for a player on he wrong end of his career, to go on to “semi retirement” in the USA. There have been many top players in the past that have done this kind of moves from the top European Leagues where they have played during their hey-days to a considerably weaker league in another continent. Examples are ranging from Franz Beckenbauer and Pele's moves to the now defunct New York Cosmos in 1970s, Mario Kempes and Roger Milla playing in Indonesia, and recently Fernandi Hierro and Gabriel Batistuta in Qatar, and even more recently Fabio Cannavaro moving to the UAE. When one moves to these leagues, and MLS is certainly one of them, these players are specially treated, and for Thierry Henry's case in MLS, he's one of the few designated “marquee players” in his club as MLS allows some players in the club, especially overseas stars to be those designated players and thus the league's salary cap does not apply to them. This translates to sky high wages, which is also seen as necessary to attract these players to these leagues. Thus, many argued that this is the reason why Henry was compelled for a move to the MLS. Probably that's the case, as had he moved to smaller clubs in Europe, such as his first club Monaco, he might even be required to take pay-cuts to play for them as even if they are willing to give the player a high wage, but they might not be able to really afford it. But, in these leagues such as in West Asia and the USA, money is not really an issue and they are prepared to pay huge sums of money to attract these players into their shores.

By now, many people would think that footballers only think about money. But, we have to see things in perspective. Even if they “play” football for a living, it's still for a living, and “playing football”, the thing which they constantly do, is actually working. They are working to earn money, and the huge sum of money that they are receiving is actually because of the rarity of top professional footballers. Basic economic law, when supply is low, price is high. Thus, we shouldn't blame any players including Henry if they consider the monetary aspects as well when considering a move. However, even if Henry did consider that aspect for his move to New York, we have to see that it might just be one small reasons out of a plethora of reasons such as the ones I am bout to highlight.

The second possible motive for this move is also perhaps to really escape all the unwanted media attention that he has been getting in Europe, starting from his decline in form for Barcelona and France, as well as the handball and World Cup fracas. I know that his move generated such a huge hype that almost literally sent a huge shock-wave to shake the the whole world (which we will touch upon again later on). However, we have to realize one more thing, that MLS is not really under the microscope, unlike the top leagues such as the La Liga, English Premier League (mooted transfer to Newcastle United or Manchester City), and even if he had decided to come back to France to Ligue 1. He will still be under immense pressure from media and his every move will be under a watchful gigantic microscope, the last thing he wants, especially at this stage of his career.

For the MLS, not only it is really difficult to watch a live match of the league outside of the USA, even within the USA itself, Americans are too busy following other more “American sports” such as Rugby (NFL), basketball (NBA), and baseball (MLB). It means that somehow once the hype of his transfer ha settled down, he would be able to settle down nicely as well in his new life in New York. Even Beckham, throughout his seasons with LA Galaxy did not really receive a lot of media attention in Europe (thus the world) and as mentioned, even in the USA it will be massively shielded by the shadows from those aforementioned American sports. Thus, he would not be getting massive media attention week-in week-out, and this is necessary to implement the saying “time will heal everything” as over time, and with little attention, his wrongdoings (read: Irish debacle) will be quietly forgotten, although I won't bet against his handball replay being featured just before every World Cup editions from now on. But in any case, he will be left to do his own stuff with New York Red Bulls in relative peace.

The third reason will be about the pure sporting reason of Henry's transfer to the New York Red Bulls. As I mentioned, at this stage of his career, he is unlikely to get many games had he stayed on in the top leagues of Europe. Thus it is rational in the sporting term that he moves to a “weaker” league in another continent. In New York Red Bulls, he is already tipped to create a prolific partnership with fellow former EPL star Juan Pablo Angel (who is himself becoming a great striker in MLS unlike his rather mediocre self in Aston Villa shirt) and I believe Henry will do well as he is more than likely to get a regular run of games throughout the season as well as scoring plenty of goals for fun. This in turn will bring Henry hope with one eye towards the sacred blue shirt with the cockerel logo. Some top pundits have mentioned that Henry will forget about the national team, unlike Beckham who kept and still keeps his availability for a call-up to the national team. However, I believe that when Henry finally proves to be a very prolific striker with the New York Red Bulls, I believe he will surface again in the European media about his possible return to the national team set-up. I believe he will not spurn that chance to represent les-bleus again especially as he would be hungry to prove any doubters wrong and to “settle unfinished business” from the disastrous World Cup 2010 campaign, even if he is to feature for France as an impact substitute rather than being a pillar of the team.

I believe, Henry's reason for opting to go to the USA is indeed an eclectic mixture of the various reasons mentioned above jumbled into one. In any case, I believe Henry's words to the media that he's not going to New York for a lengthy and paid vacations, but he's a man on a mission, eager to get the records straight again, and also to prove to the whole world that there's still plenty of gas left in his tank despite many claiming that his career is as good as finished.

Also, we have to remember that this transfer is not a one way thing in which only Henry benefits from all of these. His club stands to gain a lot of things with Henry on board. Firstly, he will certainly augment their attacking force and MLS fans will now shudder to think and calculate the possible amount of goals that could be scored by the Angel-Henry partnership between the two of them and that how far New York Red Bulls could possibly go in the competition. Besides that, the club also stands to gain a lot of financial windfall as merchandising from shirt sales will definitely go up which will benefit the club greatly, and also not forgetting the fact that many people will now want to go to the games to see Thierry Henry in action, I have also seen some facebook statuses (from Americans) that with the arrival of Henry in the MLS, this is definitely the time to start going to the games. This translates into one thing, that attendances for MLS games, especially during New York Red Bulls' home matches will rise sharply, and this is definitely good for soccer as this game will definitely garner a lot of interests from the American public. Even though again many pundits claiming that Henry is not on a mission to change the soccer scape of the USA unlike what Beckham explicitly set out to do, he might just inadvertently do exactly that and make USA's soccer as well as the Beautiful Game as a whole to become a much better game. In any case, for one, I am eager to see how Thierry Henry will rejuvenate his career in the USA as well as rejuvenate the whole of US Soccer as well as the world.

Diego Forlan Deserves the Golden Ball

World Cup 2010 has been done and dusted, as we have found a champion out of the 32 teams competing for the biggest prize of all in footballing universe, Spain, as well as Thomas Muller, the winner of the Golden Boot award and also for the young German to officially announce his arrival in world football. However, there's still one more award which drew quite a lot of criticisms and that's the Golden Ball award, awarded to the best player in the tournament. In World Cup 2010, the winner is Uruguay's Diego Forlan, and many pundits and fans, especially Internazionale fans out there feel that Forlan is not a deserving recipient of this award, as they feel that Wesley Sneijder, the runners-up for the award, or in other words the Silver Ball winner of this tournament who should have been the recipient of the Golden Ball. They argued that Sneijder has scored some great goals in the tournament that were crucial and game changing for the Dutch, especially his two goals that obliterated Brazil and sealed a 2-1 comeback win. However, we have to see that in relative terms, Forlan was much more impactful for his country than the Dutchman, as he virtually single-handedly carried his unheralded team all the way to the semi-finals and could have been in for much more. Thus, the reasons why Forlan is indeed a deserving recipient of the Golden Ball award will be outlined in the following paragraphs.

The first reason why Forlan deserves to be the winner of the Golden Ball was because of the fact that he single-handedly carried Uruguay forward with his goals (5 goals in total in the competition). Even during those games when he did not score, he helped the other players such as Edinson Cavani and Luis Suarez to strut their stuff on the pitch to score the necessary goals for them to go through. When he scores the goals, of course I don't need to elaborate much on how Forlan carried the team forward as it's so plainly obvious, but even if he only has a meager 1 assist throughout the tournament (which we will touch upon again later).

Thus secondly, when he is not scoring in a game, Suarez scores. Just like when they were up against Mexico in the last Group A match which ensured they topped the Group and avoided Argentina in the last 16, and then in the last 16 itself when they were up against a solid and resolute South Korean side, in which Suarez scored 2 goals. So, what was Forlan doing in those occasions when he does not score at all? He simply acted as a decoy who drew defenders towards him. Even if it sounds really simple, being a decoy is not that easy. A decoy striker needs a huge reputation for being extremely dangerous when he has the ball on his feet or at least somewhere around him. Based on his records throughout his career (book blotting Manchester United records aside), his plethora of goals and individual accolades confirming his knack of scoring goals simply caused defenders to panic when he moves somewhere even if it's his off the ball movements, and thus whenever he goes to somewhere, the opposing defenders are likely to follow him around while subconsciously neglecting the other strikers such as Luis Suarez, arguably the main and sole beneficiary of Forlan's decoy play when he's not scoring goals for one reason or another such as being particularly marked very tightly by the opposing team.

Thirdly, one might still argue that only players from the winning team, the runners-up or at least from the team which clinched the third place as they ended the competition in glory. Since Uruguay did not fall into any of those criteria, it was deemed that Forlan should not have received the Golden Ball. Not only that it is such a naïve judgment, but that shows that anybody with that line of thought simply do not understand football at all and simply did not watch the competition at all, and basically just followed the competition solely through its Wikipedia entry. Yes, we have to admit that Sneijder, the player widely tipped to be the real best player in the tournament, did indeed play a huge and important role in his team's progress all the way to the final, but we have to look at things in perspective, and if the award is exclusively for the players from the winning teams, then I would suggest that FIFA rips the “My Game is Fair Play” flag draped by the local kids into the pitch before each match alongside the countries' flags that are playing in each game. Fortunately, FIFA's award committee was wise enough not to be so naïve, and simply carefully and meticulously assessed the candidates before deciding to settle with Forlan. Even if his team did not progress beyond the semi-finals, and they even lost to Germany in the third place playoff, but nevertheless in the semi-finals against Holland he scored a crucial equalizing goal in the 41st minute to get Uruguay back into the game after Holland had scored through van Bronckhorst's thunderbolt strike.

Even if it wasn't enough, Forlan continued to score again in the third place playoffs in the 51st minute to get Uruguay in front, but again it wasn't enough as they suffered yet another 3-2 defeat against Germany. However, those goals against Holland and Germany could not e taken lightly. In both occasions, especially in the Holland game, Forlan's goals in those games provided the impetus towards the rest of the Uruguay squad to keep on fighting all the way to the end. In the Holland game, they kept on fighting and when 3-1 down, Maxi Pereira managed to score at the last minute to make a grandstand finish, but even if they continued to threaten Holland for a dramatic equalizer, it simply wasn't enough, but it can be argued, especially by Uruguay fans that Forlan's goals in those games played a huge role in keeping their hopes alive. That's a sign of a great player inspiring a whole nation, even during an imminent defeat.

Fourthly, as mentioned earlier in the article, Forlan was also within a touching distance in becoming the tournament's top scorer. He has 5 goals in the end, and was tied with three other players (David Villa, Thomas Muller, and Wesley Sneijder). In the end, the young Thomas Muller won the Golden Boot award due to FIFA's tie-breaking criteria of counting the assist tally of the players in the event there's a tie. Muller has 3, more than Villa Sneijder, and Forlan all have only one assist in the entire tournament and those three are further separated by the minutes spent on the pitch. I somewhat feel that all three players should have won it jointly, instead of sorting out for just one sole winner based on assists and minutes on the pitch while it should have been a simple award in which the winner(s) would be decided by the amount of goals that they have scored. But since I am just an ordinary fan and that I am nowhere near the FIFA executive positions, I digress. But this is shared by many pundits who also feel that the award should have been jointly won. But nevertheless, Forlan was just within an inch from getting yet another award in the Golden Boot award, and this simply showed that Forlan was up there with the top strikers in the tournament alongside the de facto top names such as David Villa and Wesley Sneijder (Muller being a young breakthrough star of the tournament).

Fifthly, and arguably the most important is the fact that Forlan was one of the most fair play players in the tournament. Alright, I can understand that nowadays when the word “Uruguay” is mentioned, a plethora of negative connotations come to mind, especially for the English (Referee who did not see Lampard's “Goal”) and for the Ghanaians, obviously for the blatant cheating tactic that Luis Suarez employed to stop a goalbound header with his hands, as well as his arrogant reactions in the press afterward, in which he showed no remorse and gone on to even claim that Hand of God belongs to him now. However, this is an individual award, and we should not claim that every single Uruguayan in the squad is bad. Forlan was a player who set an example, and I believe even though Diego Lugano was the one wearing the Captain's Armband, but the real leadership was actually in Forlan's hands. He really led the team, spurred the team on with distinction, as well as leading by example. For example, if he's tackled roughly, he simply shrugged it, got up immediately like a man, and went on with the game, and if he's tackled lightly, he simply stayed on his feet and continued on playing. This is so contrasting to certain players out there who are supposed to be a world class footballer, but roll themselves 8 times with the slightest contact and sometimes due to a non-existent contact. Thus, the fact that he's the embodiment of the words “Fair Play” totally merits the fact that he got the Golden Ball.

Lastly, it's of course the psychological boost that he gives to the whole squad. When he's on the pitch, the whole squad simply believe in themselves and they simply go on an overdrive mode to go on a step further as individual players. Even Fernando Muslera, much maligned in Lazio as he is always seems insecure between the posts for the Roman club, but in this competition, he looked really world class and sturdy, with quite a few world class saves for the record. It seems that Forlan has this aura that simply spurs the rest of the squad. I saw caricatures of each of the 32 teams participating in the World Cup, and for the Uruguayan team, it is a sun with Forlan's face and with two hands holding to two Jules Rimet trophies the country has won in 1930 and 1950. The caricature simply sent a clear message, at least for me, that Forlan is simply the shining light of the team, the guiding sun of Uruguay, and I dare say was the lifeline of the squad. Had he been absent for just one match, this Uruguay team will not perform like what they had been performing in the World Cup.

Thus, based on those factors highlighted above, from his goalscoring exploits for his country in the competition, for the fact that one man simply lit up the whole nation, just like how a top pundit wrote in a top website while he was in Montevideo witnessing Uruguay's run in the competition from the Capital City, and when Forlan scores, the whole city, and he believes the whole country went silent and were simply stunned by the player, their guiding light. Also, not forgetting the fact that he is a real man who realizes that football is a contact sport unlike some players who whine and cry around when oposing players get near them as if football is a Texas Hold'em game whereby someone closing in on you means that he wants to take a peek at your two cards in hand, and simply for being the team's lifeline and the guiding light to glory, although it was close but no cigar for them. In short, Forlan fully deserves the Golden Ball award and I think I have to mention this, but Forlan was a promising tennis player in his youth before he decided to switch to football when his sister was paralyzed from a car accident. Since that touching story, he has become what he is today, and besides contributing for his family, and for his sister, and for their foundation to help campaigning for the preventions of car accidents, he has contributed a hell lot for football, and he will always be remembered for a prolific football player who has lit up a game so much, and how football has to be thankful that he switched to football, or else he will be lighting up Wimbledon, Roland Garros, Rod Laver Arena, and you name it instead of the “Beautiful Game”

World Cup 2010 Final Report Cards (Part 2/2)

In the previous part, it was about the assessment of whether Holland really executed what I had prescribed in another two part articles prior to the final match itself. In this part, of course it will now be about the newly crowned World Cup champions Spain. Amazingly, not that I am trying to exaggerate the way to stop each team that I formulated as mentioned, but the champions filled more tick-boxes than the Dutch in the match in terms of the number of ways really executed by those teams. Thus, the following will be the assessment on the champions Spain.

The first aspect I mentioned was about how Spain should exploit the fact that Holland is usually in their most vulnerable state when it is the last 5 minutes or so of the game. It has been proven in World Cup 2010 most notably against Slovakia and Uruguay in which they conceded at the very last minute, which put Holland in a dangerous position for the Uruguay game but they were fortunate that the Uruguayans were not able to score one more goal to push the match to extra time. Well, Spain did score at the last minute, but they were leaving it so late, and almost too late as they scored only 3 minutes before the match went to penalties, and thus a lottery, and it might mean that the Dutch hacked and cracked and even kung-fued their way to the title, leaving football as the losers.

However, what I meant by scoring late is around the last 10 minutes of the normal time, as it would be much better to finish a knock-out match within 90 minutes instead of spilling it over to extra time where the variables would get complicated as extreme fatigue and even bouts of cramps set in. Also, the failure of introducing Torres early on or even starting him with Villa baffled me. Had Torres started alongside Villa, I believe Spain would have scored much earlier in the normal time as even if he could not score a goal, there is another important function of him, and that's as a decoy to draw the attention of the Dutch defenders and start to gang up on him and even kick him around. But that's alright, that's a small sacrifice as long as David Villa is able to be set free and do his job properly, instead of being so isolated up front and always being surrounded by at least 4-5 Dutch players everytime he gets the ball or even when a ball is on his way to him. Thus, I would consider that Spain had failed to score even later in the normal time as they did not even really try to attack the Dutch who themselves play defensively. Yes, people might say, “Spain has won! So what?” but it could be much much worse for Spain had Iniesta wasn't able to score and the match had gone to penalties.

Still revolving around a time period in the match, I also mentioned how Holland is always at their most lethal around the 60th to 70th minute of the match, and that Spain have to pay extra attention not to over commit men forward in this period of time as the Dutch are very dangerous during this period of time. In the match against Spain, they did threaten around this period. There were two instances whereby Robben almost scored, (Can't really recall but should be within or around this period of time) as he was left one on one with Casillas and in both occasion Casillas did very well to stop him, the first perhaps with a tint of luck as he stopped the shot with his trailing leg, while for the second, Casillas managed to sweep the ball from Robben's legs and he was fortunate the Dutchman did not decide to send himself tumbling on the ground clutching his legs as it would have been a straight penalty. Many pundits claimed that Casillas was extremely fortunate, especially for the first Robben chance, but whether it was down to luck or whatever it was, Spain nevertheless managed to thwart the danger of conceding from the most dangerous Dutch player on the field that night, Robben. In this department, Spain did well in closing down shop (as they had been doing throughout the match unfortunately) to prevent the Dutch from scoring during this period of time in which they usually score goals.

With that, the Spaniards also managed to keep dangerous players such as Robben as mentioned, Sneijder, and even Gio van Bronckhorst. Spain did not let the Dutch from launching dangerous long shots and/or probing long passes for most of the time, and Sneijder had a surprisingly quiet game unlike in the previous games in which he has had a lot of say in Holland's matches and of course it simply means the Dutch's unstoppable progress all the way to the Final. Spain, again maybe due to its defensive oriented formation, managed to close down those players quite superbly, especially at the back whereby the two huge pillars of Barcelona duo Puyol and Pique managed to thwart the Dutch's attempts to attack, although sometimes Puyol was caught losing a sprinting race with Robben especially, but they did well in not providing any space and opportunity to launch meaningful long shots. As for Robben, even if he managed to win those sprinting races against Puyol and Capdevila before cutting in to the middle and launch his long shot, the shot was not really flying very well and Casillas only needed to do a routine catch to save it, that's because of the closing down from the Spanish defenders earlier even if they did not manage to dispossess Robben before he launches the shot.

The last aspect I mentioned was about how Spain must really exploit a weakness, which was actually the Dutch's game-plan for this game, and that's the tendency of the Dutch players, especially players such as Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong to play pro-wrestling instead of a prper game of football on the pitch. I mentioned that the Spaniards should, if they don't resort to stimulation, to simply channel the ball and play towards van Bommel and de Jong as they are the pillars of Holland, and if they get irritated so much with the Spanish midfielders buzzing around them and past them, they would resort to roughing them up in such a way that they would get cards, especially red cards and cause a Dutch collapse. Spain really succeeded in doing so, well, they did some simulations, but it was mostly due to some kind of retaliation towards the Dutch's extremely rough style as well as their own knack of simulating, especially players such as Robben. In any case, besides the cards that they collected themselves, they managed to make the Dutch collect a lot of cards, 8 in total and 2 of them resulted in a sending off as Holland's Johnny Heitinga was sent off for a second yellow in extra time. Actually, even within the normal time, the Dutch should have been a man down as Nigel de Jong was seen executing the “Big Boot” move straight from Pro-Wrestling into Xabi Alonso's chest. Had Xabi was a female, he should have been in heaven right now. The referee decided to brandish only a yellow card to the somewhat fortunate Manchester City hard-man. But nevertheless, when the opposition players are collecting cards there's one advantage gained by Spain. When a player is on yellow, they somehow reduce their intensity and also the frequency of them executing tackles, especially dangerous and 50-50 tackles such as the sliding tackle, and thus it means that it's unlikely that the Dutch would rough them up and also defend as tightly as when they had yet to get the yellow cards. Thus, Spain managed to make the Dutch to collect cards, even if they did not directly cause it. The Dutch themselves seemed to have been so intimidated by the Spain's squad on paper that they seemed to resort to stop them from playing their own brand of football properly.

As a result, Spain managed to win the World Cup for the very first time. But despite what the pundits around the world are saying about how Spain saved all of us from having an undeserving World champion, or in pro-wrestling terms, to have a “heel” winning the World Heavyweight Championship for instance instead of a fan favorite, “heels” deserve to win too, and had Robben scored just one of his two chances, Holland could have been the winners, much to those pundits' agony, and just like how a “heel” would be booed every time he appears with his shiny Championship Belt. But now, congratulations to Spain for winning their first ever World Cup title, and now they are able to legitimately stake their claims as one of the best national teams on earth.

World Cup 2010 Final Report Cards (Part 1/2)

Finally World Cup 2010 has ended, and it somewhat ended the way it started. No, not a match with a blistering thunderous shot, but actually the penultimate game of the tournament was simply the embodiment of one of the biggest criticisms about the tournament, especially early on regarding the extreme lack of goals in the matches. For one, I really pity my dear friends in those parts of the world with the time zones such as GMT +7, 8, 9, or 10. It means that fans in those places had to try their best to be awake at such an ungodly hours in which the demons, Dracula, vampires you name them reign supreme. To make matters worse, for those people, the World Cup 2010 final came at a very very ungodly early morning of a Monday, a true blue Monday Blues inducing workday. Many people that I know who happen to find themselves in countries with those time zones mentioned above had actually wanted to give it a miss, but they simply could not do so as the whispers of “Once in every four years” kept on haunting them to no end. Thus, they decided to simply sacrifice hours of precious sleeping hours and put their health in jeopardy just to see two teams playing with an exact same of a 4-5-1 formation's variant (thanks Mourinho) and doing what DPRK's goalkeeper Ri Myong Guk dubbed as “Defending the gates to the Motherland” (He said it during DPRK's 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh to seal their qualification to World Cup 2010). It was simply better to just sleep, wake up in the morning, grab the nearest newspaper, and take a good, long, hard look at that skimpy 1-0 scoreline and that's the World Cup final for you, without sacrificing hours of sleep and perhaps a workday/schoolday for the more daring ones.

In any case, this edition of the World Cup is over, and of course this is the time to analyze Holland and Spain, the two team that competed yesterday (Yawn!). Actually, it's sad to see two such traditionally attacking teams to play like Greece under Otto Rehhagel. But nevertheless, this is the time to assess both teams based on what I had written about the various possible ways that each one of those teams could do to stop another, and now this is the time to assess whether both teams did what I had stated and explained in great detail in those two part articles prior to the 3rd place playoffs and of course the final itself. Just like the preview articles, this one will also be divided into two parts, and the first report card to be flaunted around would be the one belonging to the runners-up, Holland.

The first way I proposed for Holland to be able to stop Spain was to put Spain in an unfamiliar position in this tournament of going a goal or more behind. Basically, the Dutch should have striven to attack the Spaniards very early on, put them in the position of what the Swiss had put the Spaniards in their Group H opening match, and with the qualities in the Dutch squad, they should have been able to shake Spain so much that they could have won by a bigger scoreline that the Swiss. However, the Dutch failed big time to fulfill this target to score an early goal against Spain and make them trail, and thus causing them to open up even more and thus be susceptible to the second and subsequent Dutch goals. Well, again, it was due to the rather conservative and defensive 4-2-3-1 formation with two defensive midfielders and with only one striker up front. For the Dutch, Robin van Persie was their lone striker, and it was too much to ask any player (Cristiano Ronaldo wilted in this role in this sadly popular formation) to be up front on his own and weave their magic alone to make the difference. Not that the Spaniards were playing with a more attacking approach. They utilized the exact same formation, and were defensive orientated in that match. Also, anyone having a tingle of football knowledge would have realized that van Persie will not have any chance against the double pillars of Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique, augmented by players such as Sergio Ramos and Joan Capdevila. In short, van Persie was simply too isolated and there was totally no chance he could score in that match, let alone score early in the match. The same goes to Robben and Sneijder who simply could not do anything against 4-5 players who will surely come and surround them everytime they have the ball. This time, the example from another team is of course Leo Messi who looked so ordinary and even anonymous as he was shackled by 4-5 defenders each time he wants to do anything, let alone something magical with the ball. Therefore, the Dutch simply failed to score early on and kill off the match early on.

The second way for Holland to stop the Spaniards was to make their sheer physical superiority count at all costs. Well, “at all costs” would be too much as what we witnessed last night. I mentioned that especially in the midfield, the Dutch really had to utilize whatever advantage that they enjoyed such as the fact that they are endowed with two burly and rather steely defensive midfield duo of Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong who are more than capable of swatting aside pint-sized Spanish midfielders such as Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, and even the lone striker Villa, who was also too isolated on his own just like van Persie for the Dutch. However, the Dutch players, not only the two I have just mentioned but basically the whole squad overdid things a little. A look at the statistics of last night's match would reveal a harrowing and perhaps horrifying set of facts 9 yellow cards, including a red card for a second yellow received by Johnny Heitinga in the extra time and a whopping 28 fouls against Spain. Not forgetting the various rough fouls such as Nigel de Jong's infamous “Big Boot” onto Xabi Alonso's chest and he survived just because he is a man, if not... I shall not continue on. Many of the Dutch tackling, pushing, and shoving were all executed with no intention whatsoever to get the ball, as on many occasions the ball had long left the area. To be fair to the Dutch players, the Spanish players sometimes fell down rather too easily, but the Dutch players did it too, but nonetheless, the Dutch simply had to remember that they were playing football and not pro-wrestling, but their fouls, just like de Jong's Big Boot to Xabi Alonso indicated they were too carried away in executing the task of stopping the Spaniards.

Again, nevertheless, the Dutch managed to at least stifle Spain although the price was rather expensive to pay especially Heitinga's sending off in extra time. But it could have been much worse for the Dutch. Remember, Spain on paper is simply the most devastating and arguably the best team at present, just imagine Real Madrid and Barcelona combine forces with each other to form a coalition team, and that's Spain National Team. Despite the fact that Spain's performances have not been convincing all tournament long, they have to be stopped in each match and the Dutch, who have not been really that world beating and convincing themselves throughout the tournament might even suffer what England and Argentina did against their rivals Germany. One thing we have to remember in football is that, “Form is temporary, class is permanent”. All in all, despite the positive of how the Dutch managed to stifle Spain especially in midfield where they are the most dangerous, their plethora of cards collected and the dismissal of Heitinga simply overrode the positives as when players are on yellow, their tackling automatically become lighter as they are under the referee's and everyone's microscopes when an opposing player fell down around them. Just like how the commentator was radying himself to announce the dismissal of Spain's Carles Puyol (who was on yello) when Robben fell down around him and Capdevila when the ref turned out to give the real player who fouled Robben, Capdevila.

The Dutch also did quite well in nullifying the Spanish attacking threats from Villa as well as other players such as Iniesta (except for the only goal of the game), Jesus Navas, Xavi, Sabi Alonso, and of course David Villa by playing the stamina draining pressing game. Whenever a Spanish player advanced towards their penalty area, there were 4-5 Dutch players surrounding that player from all angles, just like how the Germans managed to neutralize Leo Messi and reduced him to just an ordinary player.

However, there was one thing that the Dutch did not manage to really embed into their minds prior to the match as well as the match proceeded on. The last thing I mentioned in the prescriptions on how Holland could stop Spain was regarding the psychological aspects of the game. I mentioned that the Dutch players really have to get rid of any psychological intimidation that the Spanish National Team exudes. A short while ago, I mentioned briefly on how the Spanish National Team is the best ever team in the planet on paper? But a football game is not won on paper, no matter how people might wet their pants just from seeing the composition and the sheer depth of world class players within the Spanish squad and even those outside who did not even make the cut, the Dutch as world class players themselves who are striving for glory should not have that kind of feeling, or in simpler and conservatively put term, they should not have respected the Spaniards too much. But they did. The fact that they overdid the second aspect of ways to stop Spain (to win the physical battles) proved that they were too eager or even too afraid to really let Spain play the game freely and gracefully. They were not willing to risk anything by bravely taking the game to Spain, to attack the oppositions head-on. But due to the sheer thought of Barcelona and Real Madrid when they are ticking, they simply wilted and resorted in stopping Spain from playing in whichever ways possible, as long as they are stopped, it's okay. Also, besides Robben's two spurned one on one chances against Casillas as well as Spain's odd chances here and there, both sides were frankly having one eye not only towards the extra time, but towards the lottery of the penalty shoot-outs. The Dutch, for one, did not even change their mentality once they know that even Spain did not try to go all the way to the top gear and try to get to the top gears themselves and simply bombard and suffocate Spain to put them to the sword once and for all. But they failed to do that and duly paid the prize when Iniesta slotted in that goal 3 minutes from the end of the second half of Extra Time.

Overall, perhaps due to the above psychological reasons or even due to the defensive oriented formation that the Dutch employed against Spain, the only objective they truly achieved was in stifling David Villa from scoring yet another goal in the World Cup and also prevented him from winning the Golden Boot award. They overdid the physical battles, they were not hungry enough to score plenty of goals especially early on to kill he game off before it spilled out to Extra Time, and they seemingly could not get past the psychological barriers of the sheer star-studdedness of the Spain National Team, now officially the best national team in the world, while Holland once again proves how they seem unable to win the World Cup no matter what and even if they look destined to win the whole thing, they are stopped right before they could reach the finish line... As usual...

3rd Place Play-off Conundrum

Wherever you go right now, especially when you are socializing with family members, relatives and/or friends, you are most likely to be asked, “Holland or Spain?”. Trust me, today alone, I was asked for an umpteenth time about which team I am going to root for in the final match of World Cup 2010 between Holland and Spain. Almost everyone if not every single person who likes or even only having little glimpses of football are talking about Holland and Spain. Not that they can be blamed though. This is the finale, the mother of all football games, the biggest ever game of the football calendar. However, everyone of us, at least at some point this week forgets one huge thing about the World Cup, and that's none other than the presence of one more match, the 3rd place playoff which is contested between the two loser teams in the semi-finals round of the World Cup. This year, that 3rd place playoff to determine the which team has the right to become the 3rd placed team in the competition. In simpler terms, and for those Olympic geeks, it's about “completing the podium”. It is sad that such a game which is supposed to be some sort of “pseudo-final” can be forgotten rather easily by the general public as well as the staunchest of fans of football in the world. For those who care, they are divided by a huge gulf of two separate opinions regarding the justification of the existence of this much forgotten match. This World Cup's 3rd place playoff will be contested between Uruguay and Germany who were defeated by Holland and Spain respectively in the semi-finals, and this compels me to just contribute my two cents' worth on this issue, and trying to fathom the possible motives for people denouncing as well as defending the playoff game.

The first and only fact that causes this playoff game to be forgotten by the public is because of the very fact that people are only focused on the final. This is quite understandable as the final game itself is ultimately the penultimate game which would decide who will be crowned as the champions of that particular edition of the World Cup. Especially with the very fact for this particular edition whereby the final will be contested between two footballing powerhouses that have historically been dubbed “the best team to not have won the World Cup Trophy”, Spain and Holland. Let's start with Spain. Besides the bizarre Final Group Stage system in place at the 1950 World Cup, they have never been able to go beyond the quarter-finals stage of the competition. This is despite the fact that Spain have traditionally been possessing an array of world beating talents on paper, but for one reason or another, they have always been failing big time to reach the last four. As for Holland, this is after all the country that mesmerized the world with its Total Football style especially in the 1970s, and in that decade, they reached the final of the World Cup on two consecutive editions of the World Cup in 1974 and 1978, losing to both hosts West Germany and Argentina respectively. Just like Spain, throughout their history, their squad have been filled with world class players but their squads have always been marred with troubles mostly internal strife among players or even player(s) and the manager.

A clash between those two teams who are competing fiercely to finally win their first ever World Cup Trophy and finally have one star above their national team's crest will always be a huge spectacle, and it is inevitable that the hype and the build-up of the game are huge and sweeping the entire planet. This is valid for every edition of the World Cup, but due to the aforementioned two countries that are contesting the final, this further consigns the 3rd place playoff to a mediocre game and even an irrelevant game that should not exist. Everyone is thinking, “come on, just get on with the final, we don't want to see those two losers anymore in this World Cup!”, of course the loudest of that would come from the neutrals, but for this World Cup, I am pretty damn sure that the neutrals totally outnumber the number of the Spaniards and the Dutch in this world.

Due to the above reason, and also due to the fact that both teams contesting the 3rd place playoff have just been defeated within a week in the semi-finals, both teams are likely to be lacking in morale as well as anymore drive to compete. After all, they have just been defeated and are simply denied a place in the final and of course the opportunity to grab the World Cup Trophy. The purists of the competition would argue that the whole point of having matches in the World Cup competition is to advance to the next round and to get closer and closer to the ultimate prize, which is none other than the World Cup Trophy itself. However, technically the 3rd place playoff is nothing of that sort. There's no further round to advance to, and there's no longer a trophy to be striven for. According to the purists who really take the concept of “knockout rounds” probably a tad too seriously and to the letter, the loser is knocked out and that's it, there will be no further involvement of the losers in the tournament. In other words, and perhaps a reference to a pro-wrestling match-up type, “Loser Leaves Town” and that's all. Besides, it should not be interesting to see two teams who are forced to play one another right after they have just suffered rather difficult to take defeats. It would perhaps be just like kicking a man when he's down, or in this case, kicking two men who are down, and then force them to bring their A-games and fight one another to determine the best among the losers.

Despite all that, we have seen throughout the history of the World Cup that the 3rd place playoff has always been a showcase of a rather liberal and gung-ho attacking style of play between two teams who have nothing more to lose and nothing more to compete for. For example, the 2002 World Cup's 3rd place game between co-hosts South Korea and Turkey ended 3-2 in the Turkish's favor as both teams attacked each other liberally in an entertaining match. Same goes for the 2006's edition as hosts Germany beat Portugal 3-1 in a glittering display of attacking football, especially from the host team in which the German fans in attendance had a lot to cheer their national team in that match to cap their marvelous World Cup performance.

Talking about cheers from fans, the 1998's 3rd place playoff also triggered plenty of cheers and plenty to be proud about to the citizens of a certain country, and that country was Croatia, a debutant to the World Cup competition. Croatia was not quite a renowned footballing nation at that time, and blessed with an array of talents such as Robert Prosinecki and Davor Suker, the country which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 dazzled their citizens and won many of fans among the neutrals when they went all the way to the semi-finals of the competition before bowing out in the semi-finals to the hosts and eventual champions France in which Lilian Thuram scored a brace which were ultimately the only two goals he had ever scored for his country. They lost to France 2-1. The dream of the tiny nation was squashed with that defeat, but they still had their moment to shine, and that was the 3rd place playoffs. They were up against Holland (who lost to Brazil on penalties), and to cut a long story short, they managed to beat Holland 2-1 and those who had shed tears in the semi-finals were now shedding tears of joy. Arguably, this achievement of finishing 3rd in the 1998 World Cup was the catalyst of the nation's slow but steady rise to become a good (but not yet great) footballing side and are still continuing to improve as a footballing nation. The confidence, the pride, and the joy of 1998 kicked things off for Croatia, and thus the importance of the 3rd place playoff cannot be underestimated so lightly.

Putting things in context, Uruguay and Germany, the two teams competing for the third place in the competition will stand to gain plenty of benefits if they manage to win this encounter. Uruguay, a historically great footballing nation, especially in the first 50 years of 20th century, have somewhat been in a slump ever since and a 3rd place finish in this World Cup might trigger one big change in this country and wake this sleeping giant which has been in some sort of an unwanted hibernation especially among its citizens. As for Germany, which has a dynamic youthful squad, a great victory in this tie will definitely restore their massive confidence seen in their double drubbing of England and Argentina in the last 16 and quarter finals respectively after that anti-climactic defeat against Spain in the semi-finals. At the very least, these youngsters would end the World Cup in glory, in celebration, and they would go home with a medal, although that's not the color they want, but nevertheless, they manage to end their campaign with a win, and this will go a long way in ensuring that the youngsters will continue to believe in themselves and start to pursue more glories, starting from the qualification campaign to Euro 2012 and the competition proper two years from now.

Lastly, did anyone mention medal? And yes, there is a winners' medal being dispensed for the winners of this 3rd place playoff tie. Again, for the Olympic junkies out there, the 3rd place match indeed completes the “podium” for the World Cup. I remember Olympic Games 2004 in which the US Basketball team, dubbed the best team in the world by far, being defeated in the semi-finals stage which totally shook the basketball universe at that time. They were expected to snatch gold and no chance or belief whatsoever were attributed to any other teams to challenge the US team to glory. Ultimately they were defeated against all odds, and they had to contend with trying to get the bronze medal, in other words the third place in the competition. I remember the US team was quite in a disarray, everyone was demoralized and were basically just in a shell-shocked mode. Tim Duncan, the US Team's captain reportedly told his team during the pep talk before the game that “Hey, even if it's nothing more than the bronze medal that we are aiming for right now. It's still better than nothin'!” and they duly won the third place match to win that bronze medal and third place.

From that story, I won't be surprised if the respective captains of Uruguay and Germany included at least an equivalent of what Tim Duncan had said to the US team prior to their 3rd place play-off. So what if they fail to compete for the World Cup. They are still in it, there's still something significant to be fought very hard for with all their might. From restored confidence, possible resurrection and/or emergence of a football nation (re-emergence for the case of Uruguay), and of course the fact that the teams which are always remembered are the 1st, of course, the runners-up, and the third placed team. While the proverbial fourth placed team is forgotten. For those who love to surf Wikipedia, just check out the various World cup editions, as well as the aforementioned basketball section of the 2004 Olympics, and just glance at the very beginning of the page, and in the article, the first, second, and third team in the competition are stated while the “fourth” placed team are not.

Also, the match between Uruguay and Germany will be further spiced up by the fact that the race to the Golden Boot is still pretty much open for Klose's Germany, and even if he fails to capture the tournament's Golden Boot (which means his rivals David Villa and Wesley Sneijder score some goals in the final), two goals from the veteran German striker would be enough for him to surpass Ronaldo (the Brazilian version) as the top scorer in the World Cup finals of all time. Surely Klose will relish this chance to make history for himself and to regain the record for his country (after the Brazilian had surpassed Gerd Muller, a German).

Not to forget the fact that two key players of both teams Luis Suarez for Uruguay and Thomas Muller for Germany will also be eager to perform for their countries again after both men had been suspended for their semi-final games. They will also be eager to compete for the Young Player of the Tournament award. All in all, for this match-up, everything still to play for for both countries, and there's no reason not to be psyched up and be compelled to win this one gloriously.

Therefore, no matter how many reasons that detractors of this play-off game want to bring up such as the few mentioned at the beginning of this piece, there are always reasons which totally justify the continuing existence of the 3rd place playoff game stated just above and perhaps those reasons are much bigger and much more significant than the reasons to play down the importance of the 3rd place playoff game. Besides, there's still the bronze medal to be played for, a special glory in its own way, and also a way to end the World Cup Campaign in victory, basking in the loud cheers (and vuvuzela sound for this World Cup) of their fans, as well as receiving the Bronze Medal, which many world class players actually do not possess, and there's every reason to be proud of the bronze medal. I know the very last reason might border with insanity, but that's a fact. Nevertheless, the upcoming 3rd place play-off game between Uruguay and Germany is the second last game of the World Cup 2010, and arguably will be the second last time that ordinary fans like yours truly could hear the much hated and equally much loved unique sound of vuvuzela which constantly reminds us that this is the first World Cup in Africa, and this is the vintage and exotic African culture. Also, the game will promise to be an explosive one with plenty of goals to be scored.

How to Stop Them? (Part 2/2)

In the first part of this series, It has been explained deeply and in great detail about the possible ways that Spain could stop Holland in the World Cup 2010 final. Therefore, before I am being suspected of a staunch Spanish supporter or even a Spanish writer, I will now go through again in this second part about the possible ways and strategies that could be employed by Holland to stop the Spanish Armada from reaching the biggest treasure of them all in world football, the World Cup Trophy. There are several sides and aspects of how Holland could curb Spain en route to victory and to the trophy, namely winning the team battle on the pitch, winning the individual battles among individual players from both sides, and also the crucial and yet most underrated and unnoticed, the psychological battle on and off the pitch, especially the former during the 90 minutes or even 120 minutes of intense football.

The first aspect is of course the general battle between the two teams, culminating in scoring the necessary goals to wrap the game up before it could drag on to Extra Time and even the dreaded and much criticized penalty shoot-outs. Since that opening day defeat against Switzerland, Spain seems to have slowed down on their mesmerizing pass and move, or Barcelonaesque football if you like. They become somewhat a rigid and cautious unit and are not really hungry to inflict a bucketload of goals on the opponents, unlike their semi-final opponents, Germany. They have become so efficient as they grind 1-0 after 1-0 of results, which is not really what fans and pundits had hoped prior to the World Cup, but those are the kind of result which Jose Mourinho proudly and cockily would comment, “1-0? I don't care, we won!” and rightly so as Germany for all of their flashy football are consigned to competing in the low morale and infamous 3rd place play-off while efficient and pragmatic Spain are in the Final. If that is not enough, Carles Puyol's goal against Germany (only goal of the game of course) was dubbed by plenty of pundits as a “typical Bolton Wanderers goal”. That's another example of “Mourinho Effect” (hopefully I could write about this in depth in the near future) and also yet another sad example of Joga Bonito losing its life force steadily but surely to be replaced by pragmatic, catenaccio football. Welcome back 1960s, and Helenio Herrera would be shaking in delight in his grave as catenaccio makes a glorious comeback.

Alright, the point of the lengthy explanation above regarding the somewhat newfound playing habit of Spain was actually resulted in the aforementioned opening day defeat against Switzerland, in which their flashy football was thwarted in an efficient fashion with resolute defending and the Swiss simply ground a somewhat messy but no less than a 1-0 victory. Since then, especially during the knockout stages, Spain have knocked one team after another all with a 1-0 victory. Call them a squad of Megaman (for those who don't know, he's a robot who is able to copy and utilize his enemies' weapons) if you like, but they are playing to grind efficient 1-0 victory, and yeah, even if people want to argue that had Pedro passed the ball to Fernando Torres, they would have won 2-0 and not 1-0 all the way to the final, but yeah. Thus, since the opening day defeat of Switzerland, Spain have yet to concede a goal (except for that 2-1 match against Chile) and in any case they have yet to find themselves trailing their opponents in a match since Gelson Fernandes' winning goal in the opening match against Switzerland.

Therefore, what the Dutch should do is not to hold out themselves in search of a 1-0 win as Spain is most likely to be the team that gets the 1 winning goal and game over Holland. The Dutch have to take the Spaniards back all the way to the opening Group H meeting with Switzerland, and they have to do what Gelson Fernandes did to the Spaniards, score an early goal which would certainly put the Spanish players in a shell-shocked mode. After that 1 goal, the Spaniards are likely to panic and this would jolt their natural attacking instincts and just start playing their Joga Bonito game in their desperate attempt to equalize and save the game, it's Switzerland all over again. However, the Dutch, with Arjen Robben, Dirk Kuyt, the in form Golden Boot chasing Wesley Sneijder, and even van Persie have more than enough to quality to strike the heart of Spain's defense directly at the jugular, unlike the Swiss who really hung on to dear life with their staunch defending.

Of course, to score that early goal is not an easy task. Holland is up against the European Champions, a team which is scarily almost a hybrid of Barcelona and Real Madrid, almost a La Liga Selection Squad, augmented by other world class players such as Fernando Torres and Fabregas (who might well come home to Barcelona soon). Thus, as mentioned early on, the Dutch have to win their individual battles against the Spanish players. In the previous part, I pointed out Mark van Bommel as the weak link in the Dutch squad and might become their answer to Felipe Melo at anytime if the Spaniards are as crafty as the Dutch in their match against Brazil. However, we must not underestimate his importance in the match-up against Spain. Looking at the Holland midfield and defense consisting of players such as Nigel de Jong, van Bommel, van der Wiel, and Johnny Heitinga up against players such as Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Iniesta, and Pedro, you have to start thinking that it is just like a battle between Toms and Jerries. To stop the pint sized, speedy, and elusive Spanish midfielders from wreaking havoc and inflict damages to Holland, the Dutch need to really make the physical advantage that they have count to the last nanometer of their difference in height and build. Nigel de Jong and van Bommel together with the backline have to really use their physical superiority to stop them in their tracks, and if necessarily get a little rough with them. Heck with the yellow cards, as long as it's not red, and the small sized Spaniards are stopped, Holland have won three-quarters of the battle, and the only thing left is to finish off Spain by scoring a goal or two for good measure.

Another area which the Dutch must really pay attention to, especially if they fail to break the duck during the first half and/or up to 60th minute, they really have to find a way to stop the movements of David Villa and Fernando Torres (if the latter is playing). Despite many fans and pundits criticizing Fernando Torres to no end, even as far as calling him Samson as they claim that he has become useless after having a haircut. But I assure the world that Torres had done this before during his Atletico Madrid years in which he was sporting an identical hairdo as Juan Sebastian Veron and Stone Cold Steve Austin and I assure you he was still good with that hairdo. In the actual fact, Torres played a huge role in Spain's charge to the final, especially their charge to the semi-finals (as he didn't play vs Germany). The sharper ones among us have observed that during the knockout stages, David Villa has been scoring in those 1-0 victories, and he did not score in the semi finals against Germany. Why? Torres played in the previous matches but he did not play against Germany as mentioned. Even if he does not score any goals in this tournament, he has undoubtedly played a huge role for his team, and for their sake, I really hope a Villa-Torres pairing will be restored in the final. But yeah, this is about stopping Spain, and so, the role of Torres has actually been that of a decoy. He simply sacrifices hmself to make off the ball runs around the opponents' penalty area and players of his stature cannot be ignored by the opposing defense and they will commit men to mark him. This will undoubtedly free up space for David Villa to score.

Thus, assuming that those two play in tandem for Spain in the final, the Dutch will have to keep in mind never to over-commit their defensive manpower to just handle Torres alone as Villa is lurking around the penalty box himself, ready to pounce to any chances coming his way, or half chances for that matter to be converted into deadly goals. If possible they should close down the Spaniards as often as possible, even if this is a stamina wasting strategy, but letting Villa, Torres, Xavi, Iniesta et al. to roam freely is simply suicidal. Even during set pieces, extra attention have to be given to defenders such as Puyol and Pique from doing damage with their heads just like how the Germans found out to their cost and also they have to be careful with Sergio Ramos' deadly forwards runs and if possible to launch counterattacks through that flank. Especially with the aforementioned closing down strategy, the Dutch will have to find a way to conserve their stamina carefully, considering how they always deflate towards the end of the match as mentioned in Part I and that Spain is a team with plenty of explosive talents on the bench, such as Fabregas, Jesus Navas, and David Silva just to name three ready to destroy the surely tired Dutch defense at the point of their fresh introduction into the fray.

Lastly, it is certainly going to be the psychological aspect of the game. Like I said earlier, a glance at the Spanish squad list would send chills down anyone's spine, with glittering players plying their trade at the very best clubs. Plethora of world class talents in which 23 man slots seem to be unfair for a country with such an array of talents as many more of the world class talents such as Marcos Senna and Santi Cazorla are left out of the squad. This is truly the very best team in the world on paper at least! However, the Dutch must not have those words that I have just written in their minds. They have to clear their mind about how Spain is composed of players from Real Madrid, Barcelona, best teams blah blah, but they really have to believe that they are in the final against Spain, they are not any weaker than Spain, and that they are the best. Bert van Marwijk must simply show his motivational skills here and embed that in the players' minds while trying his best to erase any traces of inferiority complex in the squad. Jose Mourinho has done it, yes he's such an impactful manager, single-handedly resurrected catenaccio football, depose the long heralded 4-4-2 all the way to the dustbin and make 4-5-1 and its derivatives the new winning formula, as well as totally redefining the word “confidence”. He has done it with Inter as they totally stopped Barcelona from playing and simply defeat them over two legs in the Champions League en route to their historic Treble Winning season. Bert van Marwijk must do the same and psyche his squad up. Perhaps Wesley Sneijder could be of great help as he was part of that historic Inter team.

In any case, even though it doesn't really promise to be a match flooding with goals, and that both teams will cancel each other with their own ways and wits to stop each other (just like if you read Part I and II of this series in a row, everything will cancel out), it promises to be explosive, to be a final to remember, and as sad as it could be, the World Cup is ending, let us savor the last 180 minutes of football at the very least that is left (along with the 3rd place playoff between Germany and Uruguay) and simply enjoy the moment and the World Cup Spirit, and until the competition arrives again in four years' time in Brazil.