So What Have We Learned Over The Last Month?

German football legend Sepp Herberger, he managed the 1954 World Cup winning team, once said, "The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theory."

Well old Sepp would have noticed that these days the game has changed and that whilst games lasting beyond ninety minutes isn't exactly a new concept, the roundness of the ball seems to be a movable feast. Each tournament we, the paying and viewing spectator, are re-introduced to the theory that the current ball is 'rounder than before.' As we have seen demonstrated more than once good players can control almost anything that is thrown at them and the moaning minnies went home early leaving those who could adjust to something a little different to light up the competition.

The biggest losers were England and most of the African continent. The winners South America (for a while) and then Europe. African football, and I hate to have to throw the whole continent into one big category, has not moved forward at all in a decade. The millions of pounds, Euros etc that are earned by the big (and not so big) stars earning a living in the big leagues of Europe will take decades to trickle down to the grass roots and produce teams that are able to compete at the intensity required for the biggest football competition in the world. England showed once again that qualification is easy but competition is a world away, for all the pre-competition bravado and optimism (me included) they performed like a teenager of a first date, all furtive fumbling and misplaced hands. Italy and France went home old, tired and well beaten, Portugal could only play one way and Denmark showed that perhaps Sweden should have qualified after all. In the Japan v Denmark game we saw a team well drilled, organised and free spirited playing a team that was uptight, unable to play together and generally lacking in self-confidence, a curious case of national stereotypes reversed.

South America showed for a while how it should be done, the time honoured tradition of grinding out early results before improving as the competition got to the business end: Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and of course Uruguay gave us flashes of brilliance.

And so it came down to the last four, three Europeans and Uruguay. The Germans had surprised everybody, they included three forwards who between them had spent the season avoiding the goal like a teenager avoiding the gaze of a maiden aunt who has just caught them collectively wanking in the shed. Suddenly Muller, Podolski and Klose (who would you believe West Ham had tried to sign on a free transfer before the competition) were suddenly shaking the Aunts hand (after wiping it you hope), scoring with free abandon. Holland had found their way to the semi-finals courtesy of a Brazil side who seemed to be suffering from the belief that they only had to turn up in South Africa to be crowned champions, whilst Spain made it without actually having been any good. Uruguay had been good all the way from their opening match and in Diego Forlan they had, for me, the man of the competition.

And so it came down to two and not only will this competition end with an all European final outside of Europe for the first time but it will also end with a European team winning the World Cup outside of Europe for the first time.

It's come down to a match between the country that gave us total football versus the country that took total football to its heart, courtesy of the Dutch influence at Barcelona in the 1980's and 1990's, and gave it back as Tikki takka - the art of holding onto possession so long that your opponent is rendered catatonic and you sneak in and score whilst they, your opponents, are being revived by FIFA's medical team. The contrast in styles is at the same time fascinating and slightly unreal. For decades, since 1969 in fact, Holland have played attacking football without fear, it took them to two successive World Cup finals but also meant that they didn't compete at all in four of the next six final stages, now they play a version of wait and see that in many ways reminds me of watching the great Italian club sides of the past. Spain, for so long the European football bridesmaids, appear to have passed a law that anybody over five feet seven who isn't a defender will be passed off as a South American and therefore illegible to play, Xabi Alonso being an obvious exception who was allowed to play simply because he has a cool name.

The Dutch and the Spanish have a bit of history as they say in certain circles, although in footballing terms they have never met in a competitive match. The national anthem of Holland owes much of its lyrical content to what the Dutch call the '80 year war' between Holland and Spain from 1568-1648, the war that defined much of what we today know as Holland and Belgium.

The first verse shows a certain amount of brotherly love between the Protestant European north and the Catholic south.

"William of Nassau am I, of Dutch blood.

Loyal to the fatherland I will remain until I die.

A prince of Orange am I, free and fearless.

The king of Spain I have always honoured."

Fortunately time will not allow all fifteen verses to be sung before the game tomorrow, which is probably just as well because by the time the tenth verse comes around that Dutch-Spanish love-in has changed.

"Nothing makes me pity so much in my adversity,

then that are seen to be impoverishing the good lands of the King

That you are molested by the Spaniards,

O noble Netherlands sweet,

when I think of that, my noble heart bleeds."

If Holland were playing anybody else, with the exception of England, I would want them to win. This is different though, the Barcelona influence means that I am throwing my three cornered hat into the Spanish corner, funnily enough the Barcelona influence wasn't enough for one member of our household to switch her allegiance from Argentina.

A Button-Hamilton one-two at Silverstone followed by a Pedro-Torres one-two in South Africa will round of the weekend quite well thank you.