I'm glad that Spain won. I just found out I have a bunch of Spanish ancestry.
Prior to the game, I was hoping the Netherlands would win. but as the game worn on, I completely changed my opinion and was hoping the proper footballing team would win. The Netherlands ruined would should have been a fantastic game, with their consistent fouling and brutality. Spain went out and tried to play, while the Dutch went out to disrupt the flow of the game. I dont mind a team going in hard and trying to get in the faces of the opposition, but that was way over the top and they could have seriously injured someone.
The ref was mainly at fault for this, for not sending off Van Bommel and De Jong in the first half. Heitinga should have been sent off earlier. By not stamping his authority on the game early he let the Dutch run riot.
The worst thing for me though is that with players like Robben, Van Persie, Van Der Vaart, Sneijder, etc, the Dutch could have went out and played football as they have the talent.
Thankfully the team that plays football the right way won.
The Dutch play rough, that's their style....in this case I think it got a bit out of hand. The referee handled it fairly well considering the kind of hitting that was going on. I have heard people moaning that it was a boring game because there was no scoring, I guess you have to know the sport and appreciate skill to really see how great of a game this was. For those that are curious, this is how the top five teams ranked after the WC was done.....
1) Spain
2) Holland
3) Germany
4) Uruguay
5) Argentina
Bull. There were two obvious red cards in the first half. The refs were too afraid to take someone out of the game - as they should have done. The Netherlands dared the refs to try and take control of the game, and the refs failed. They should have been playing two men down for the entire 2nd half. Saying that they play "physical" is bull****.