Final blog: Spain Crowned World Champions

Right. First and foremost, what a month! I'm still feeling a slight hangover from it all ^^ South Africa proved all its doubters wrong and put on a show that has lifted the hearts and souls of many people around the world.

Personally, it's renewed my hope in world football and I can't wait for Brazil already (there's the little matter of Ukraine/Poland to deal with first in 2012 of course but still, the idea of Brazil is pretty darn cool!)

So. A quick and very big "thank you" to all of South Africa for this wonderfully organized event. The matches were great. Stadiums looked amazing and the people, well, the people were the heart and pulse that drove this great occasion forward. Great job :)

On to the football and, firstly, apologies to all for the delay and apologies also to all the Spanish fans I've been slating out there too. After the first big disappointment of the world cup (when Spain beat Portugal), I've had to get over the second one (watching Spain lift that trophy!)

Spain have been crowned world cup champions with a 1-0 win over the Dutch, so I've been wondering how I'm going to approach this, my last blog of one of the most exciting and unpredictable world cups I've watched to date.

Do I cave in, bite the bullet and bow down to the new, reigning world champions of football or do I let my biasness and 'anti-Spainism' get the better of me, admiting that Spain won (albeit without being very much fun to watch?

Hmmm... it's a tough one but, seriously, I wouldn't be very Portuguese if I did the former and omitted the latter so, yeah, why not?! I'll start that way anyway. Besides, what would the world be without a little friendly rivalry, right? ;)

So. Spain are officially the first ever team in all of the history of world cups, to lift the trophy without managing to score more than 10 goals in the whole tournament. They scored 8 to be exact and conceded only 2 (both during the group stages).

Every other game after that ended in a 1-0 win to the Spanish.

So what does all this mean? Does it mean that Spain can be labeled, the most "un-adventurous" world champions ever? Or can we say that they've been the most bland, boring and unexciting team of this and every world cup ever played?

I'll be the first to admit that I am a little bitter, sure. I've been rooting for every other team to beat them and now they're the World Champions. But people have been saying that they are the only team to have played "total" football. The only team to have swept past all by playing the "beautiful game".

It's almost like those same people forgot how they lost to Switzerland, scraped past Chile and only just managed to beat Paraguay before reaching the semi's.

They then needed to wait until 15 minutes from time before beating the - until then - very exciting, young Germans and only just managed to score after 116 minutes of football, against the Dutch in the final game of the tournament.

So I beg to differ on the "beautiful game" comments.

About that final, Spain beat the Netherlands in a dirty, tempestuous match that saw 14 yellows and one red, dished out by Howard Webb during 120 minutes of football. In his defense though, he was left little choice as the game became a pretty ugly one right from the off.

In the end, there was even a little controversy surrounding Iniesta's 116th minute strike which, in effect, gave the Spanish the trophy. Sneijder's shot at goal clearly hit the wall and went out for a Dutch corner, but Webb gave a goal kick and the Spaniards went up the other end and scored.

OK. I mustn't take too much away from Spain. They did indeed dominate that one for the most part but as for the rest of the tournament, can we truly say they were the best team?

If we do, we'd have to say though, that it was not by far, and in all honesty, I don't actually think any team really reached their full potential this year (with the exception of maybe Germany and Uruguay).

Ghana also showed the world that they're true fighters with glimpses of extravagant football and of course the Netherlands also surprised a few (including their own), with a great run all the way to the final.

But the tournament will probably be remembered for the teams that didn't perform rather than did.

France, Italy, England and Brazil were probably the biggest disappointments, along with the lack of great individual and team performances.

Although there was great team unity and spirit displayed, it was a little bit flair-less. I can't actually remember many moves that really made my jaw drop or any super, controversial incidents like Zidane's infamous head butt for example.

Some blamed the height of the venues. Others blamed the Vuvu's or referee's but actually there was probably only one statistic that might have really looked a little bad, and that was of the Jabulani ball.

The Jabulani ball was openly criticized throughout the tournament and was touted as 'the best ball ever created', but a crazy stat showed that only about 33% of all shots at the tournament were on target.

That's down almost 10% in comparison with the Premier League and Champions League last season, and also the World Cup in 2006. It's a very low statistic and only 4 teams - Italy, Japan, Slovenia and Germany – hit the target with more than half of their shots.

So in the end, the teams that did well were the ones that controlled and passed the ball and eventually tried to walk the ball in... not the one's that took shots at goal from a distance (sorry Ronaldo! Next time they'll make a ball, specially for you I'm sure!)

Be it as it may though, every team had to play with the same ball and under the same conditions. It's the same with every sport but I guess, at this time, it just suited the Spanish more.

Their passing was crisp and precise and although they were sometimes boringly patient, they got their just rewards through fighting hard and pressing when they didn't have the ball too. I'll take my hat off to them for that... but I'll want the hat back on soon after, thank you very much.

But I can't really say anything bad about this tournament, really, as it threw everything it could at the world of football. It's been a fantastic event and I just wish (like most world cups mind you) it could have gone on for longer.

So...*ahem*... congratulations Spain on your "victory", we'll see you in 2012! Grrrr... Also, many congratulations for Diego Forlan, who picked up man-of-the-tournament, young 20 year old Muller, who got the golden ball and again, many congratulation to all South Africans for putting on a marvelous show

What a great month!

Thanks for reading you guys. Till next time ;)