It is set out to be a great a great day - July 11th 2010. The World Cup Finals Final. Two teams that have never won it before. Spain, the reigning European Champions, holders of the record for successive international without defeat, home to the two giants of the club game - Barca and Real [only one player in the starting 11 in the semis comes from a different club]. Holland, the inventors of Total Football. Twice finalists who lost to the hosts. Winners of all 14 matches leading to the Final - 8 in qualification and 6 in the Finals.
More importantly, these are two teams who play "real" football. On average they both have about 60% possession. I guess they'll need 120% possession for the final. Sneijder and Villa leading scorrers in the Finals with 5 goals each. The Dutch, experts at scoring a goal more than they concede (2:1 v Brazil, 3:2 v Uruguay). Spain, the 1:0 experts v Portugal, Paraguay and Germany.
So, as you would expect, expectations are high for Sunday night. Very high. It should be a classic. It genuinely can be. And yet, the Final rarely is. Are we all, and myself most importantly, destined for a disappointment? For some reason I just cannot see it happening. Different to many teams who depend on a single star player - France [Ribery], Argentina [Messi], England [Rooney], Uruguay [Forlan], Portugal [Ronaldo] - both Spain and Holland have a number of world class players. Iniesta, Xavi and Villa for Spain. Robben, Sneijder and Van Persie for Holland. All six can change the game with a single moment of briliance. Between them the two teams shot 89 times on target in the finals. It is destined to be great!
PS 565km down. 435km to go.
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