by Jason King
bestfootballvideosonline.com
On 11th July, 2010, all roads will lead to Soccer City Stadium in South Africa for the final game of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. The game will have the Netherlands, two time finalists and Spain, who for all their wonderful football have never been to a final, pitted against one another in a contest looked at as many as a breath of fresh air since the usual suspects Italy, Brazil, France and Argentina were all eliminated.
The final between Netherlands and Spain will only be the third that does not feature Germany or Brazil; the other two being 1954 and 1978. In the run up to the final, Netherlands managed to beat Denmark, Japan, Cameroon and Slovakia in the group stages. In the quarter final, the Oranje boys turned on the style and sent favorites Brazil out of the competition booking a date with Uruguay in the Semi Finals.
The Semi final saw them beat Uruguay with goals from inspirational Captain Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, skillful Wesley Sneijder and tricky Arjen Robben, to send them to their first final since 1978 when they lost to Argentina. Netherlands Coach Bert van Marwijk is focused on leading Netherlands to their first every World Cup trophy. This might seem motivation enough but knowing well that they are up against a formidable Spanish side, the Oranje boys will give their all on the final. Spain, are themselves hoping to remove the tag of ‘under achievers’ having played attractive football for a long time but failed to have trophies to show for it. That said, they did somewhat silence their critics by winning Euro 2008.
However, the panel is still out there to dissect their every attempt at glory. Being in the final for the first time is something that the Spaniards will try to ignore since this World Cup has already seen some real major upsets. Their journey to the Final saw them garner more critics than sympathizers after losing to Switzerland in their opening game even though they went ahead to defeat Honduras, Chile, Spain, Portugal before meeting and defeating Paraguay and Germany in the Quarter final and semi final respectively. The two teams, Netherlands and Spain, have previously met on 9 occasions and have equally shared the spoils with each having 4 wins and a draw. Both teams head into the encounter on the background of a formidable run of form with Netherlands winning all 8 of their World Cup qualifying campaign games and Spain heading into this year’s world cup with a 35 match unbeaten run dating as far back as 2007. The game that will take place on 11th July will have billions of football enthusiasts around the world hoping to see history in the making as this will be the first time that the title has been won by a European Country outside the European continent.