2010 World Cup News and Analysis

Soc­cer City on Sun­day evening will see the show­down of two of the most in form teams in World Foot­ball over the past two years. The Nether­lands boast the supe­rior form record that stretches back to Sep­tem­ber 2008 and sees them unbeaten in 25 matches. The Span­ish are not far behind, and all but for two losses against the United States at last years Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup and against Switzer­land at this years World Cup respec­tively, they would be unbeaten like their Dutch counterparts.

Still Spain’s record can­not be lamented. Suf­fer­ing two losses over a 31 games mea­sures up to Holland’s record and makes it even harder to decide between these two sides on the form guide alone.

In the lead up to the final, and even the third place play­off between Uruguay and Ger­many, it was refresh­ing how the Golden Boot race has been kept alive so deep into the com­pe­ti­tion. Nearly a for­gone con­clu­sion in the 2006 World Cup after the quarter-final stage, this years tour­na­ment has four play­ers vying for the title. Albeit Thomas Müller and Diego For­lán were only able to level with the fore­run­ners David Villa and Wes­ley Snei­jder after their goals in the third place play­off, but the gen­eral race for top goalscorer in South Africa has been a wel­come addi­tion to the over­all plot of the World Cup.

Refer­ring back to Villa and Snei­jder, this duel between these two key play­ers for their respec­tive coun­tries only high­lights the sig­nif­i­cance of them both to their teams. Goals win matches, and the fact that they are in a show­down for not only the Golden Boot, Golden Ball and World Cup itself also speaks vol­umes for their indi­vid­ual abilities.

In the lead up to the final, Snei­jder has come in for some crit­i­cism in rela­tion to his per­for­mances and whether his goal scor­ing tally is merely cast­ing a shadow over his true form. He has admit­tedly assisted few goals through­out the tour­na­ment, but posi­tion­ing is a key asset for any foot­baller and his habit for being in the right place at the right time has rewarded him with goals.

There is, how­ever, no ques­tion over the con­tri­bu­tions of David Villa. In a mis­fir­ing Span­ish front­line, he has been the stand­out per­former and made pas­sage to this stage of the com­pe­ti­tion that bit eas­ier for Spain with his five goals.

Other key per­form­ers that have been an ever-present for their teams through­out the tour­na­ment will also be expected to carry on into the final. At right back for Spain, Ser­gio Ramos has been one of their most con­sis­tent play­ers. He and Dutch left back Gio­vanni van Bron­ck­horst will be in a con­stant bat­tle through­out regard­less which team is attack­ing or defending.

Although he may not be everyone’s favourite player at the moment after being shown up for his par­tic­u­lar style of play, but he and his hold­ing mid­field coun­ter­part Nigel de Jong will be the chief insti­ga­tors required to sti­fle the Span­ish mid­field out of the game, thus cut­ting their pass­ing flow.

Mean­while all this focus has been on play­ers com­ing into this final with form on their side, focus has been prin­ci­pally taken away from those who are strug­gling. Two Pre­mier League stars such as Robin van Per­sie and Fer­nando Tor­res could yet find their feet in this World Cup and sur­prise view­ers by being the deci­sive fac­tor between these two sides.

Repeat­ing key play­ers for each coun­try could be end­less when ref­er­enc­ing these two teams. The main bat­tle will be fought in the open­ing few min­utes of play. This stage of the game will see the Span­ish attempt to dic­tate the pace of the game and put in place their own game plan. If they man­age to gain the ini­tia­tive dur­ing this early part of the game, it will be the true mark of Hol­land as world cham­pi­ons to reverse the influ­ence over the game in their favour.

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