[lookout123]

Breakdown? Nah, too depressed to bother. That was a predictably horrible final. For the last few years I've supported Spain and Netherlands in international football. Mrs L thought we'd won the lottery when Spain won the Euro's in 08. Their flowing football is what dreams are made of most of the time, but imo they've become too cocky. They've slowed their play down too much and have basically just become a slow motion version of Barcelona. Eh Whatever.

Netherlands were the underdogs and the Dutch invented total football. I liked that over the last year they had continued playing their fast attacking game but had managed to set some of the egos aside and get a bit tougher as well. Unfortunately going into the final they decided they couldn't compete with Spain's passing unless they played physical and defense (how Inter beat Barca in the CL) but they failed to notice that van bommel and De Jong don't have the skills to play that game without getting carded. Van Marwiik got the tactics and line up wrong, imo.

Once Robin Van Persie received a yellow card (unwarranted imo) early in the game the die was cast. When you give a yellow for something that soft the ref MUST throw cards the rest of the game just to be consistent. netherlands had no chance of finishing the game with 11 players on the field. Between Webb(generally a poor attention whore ref) stopping play every 3 seconds, Van Bommel plowing through everyone, and Iniesta and a few other spanish players diving like the prima dona queens they've become the final was a painful game to watch. Exactly what the US budding enthusiasm did not need to continue growing.

Spain was by far the better team but Puyols should have been red carded early in the first half for his two footed studs up lunge, and Iniesta could have seen red for retaliatory shove and certainly should have seen a couple of yellows for his playacting and general cuntishness. I've never wished ill on a player but I'd have a hard time feeling bad if someone were to snap Andres Iniesta in half in Barca's season opener.

Ah, well it's all over now. Germany were the best team in the tournament but their youth were a bit intimidated by Spain early in their game and they lost out to a more talented, less cohesive Spanish side.

Have I mentioned yet that Iniesta is a worthless piece of shit who should be cuntpunted every hour on the hour for the next 25 years? I don't like him much and this game just reinforced my distaste.