Kieran
The GOAT
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Yeah, that's the beauty and terror of the World Cup: if the team doesn't ignite they go home. Even when they do ignite, it's often not enough. Italy in 1982 was a great team - but you wouldn't know it until they beat Brazil. Sometimes that happens, a side looks ordinary and then they sweep all before them.
In 1990, oppositely, West Germany looked great at the start and then played dreary conservative football and won the thing by a penalty in a final that was a lousy excuse for the Beautiful Game.
It's true about Spain too, their superiority was based upon how well they keep control of games, without ever really flattening the opposition. Holland that year were kind of like the Brazil side in 1974: a perfect repudiation of their own footballing principles, with a huge dollop of thuggery and cynicism thrown in. It wouldn't have been an injustice had Holland been down to 9 men by half-time in the final, and I think the ref was very lenient, maybe too aware of the occasion to feel he should "ruin it" by waving the red card. But Holland had no such qualms and were easily the antidote or evil twin to their great sides of the past.
And yet Spain struggled to overcome them.
One thing about the more romantic failures at the World Cup - they all lost against great sides (Germany in 1954 and 1974, Italy in 1982), but the teams who won were much more practical and grounded in solid defensive fundamentals. The aesthetic beauty in sports sometimes isn't enough, when faced by pragmatic and stubborn opposition.
A bit like tennis, but without the knees... :snigger
In 1990, oppositely, West Germany looked great at the start and then played dreary conservative football and won the thing by a penalty in a final that was a lousy excuse for the Beautiful Game.
It's true about Spain too, their superiority was based upon how well they keep control of games, without ever really flattening the opposition. Holland that year were kind of like the Brazil side in 1974: a perfect repudiation of their own footballing principles, with a huge dollop of thuggery and cynicism thrown in. It wouldn't have been an injustice had Holland been down to 9 men by half-time in the final, and I think the ref was very lenient, maybe too aware of the occasion to feel he should "ruin it" by waving the red card. But Holland had no such qualms and were easily the antidote or evil twin to their great sides of the past.
And yet Spain struggled to overcome them.
One thing about the more romantic failures at the World Cup - they all lost against great sides (Germany in 1954 and 1974, Italy in 1982), but the teams who won were much more practical and grounded in solid defensive fundamentals. The aesthetic beauty in sports sometimes isn't enough, when faced by pragmatic and stubborn opposition.
A bit like tennis, but without the knees... :snigger
