Spain and Netherlands in final in 2010 Fifa World Cup

2010 FIFA World Cup: Spain and Netherlands in final

Spain Team Photo - 2010 Fifa World Cup


Spain and Netherlands in final in 2010 Fifa World Cup



Netherlands Team Photo - Fifa World Cup 2010





2010 FIFA World Cup: Spain and Netherlands in final

The Netherlands and Spain will on Sunday this weekend play in the grand finale of the 2010 FIFA World Cup at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg.
The match is expected to be watched by billions of fans from across the world.
Both teams are bidding to claim the coveted crown as World Champions and lift the trophy for the first time in their history.
The two teams can also offer compelling arguments for the favourites’ tag going into a final show-piece that will be the Netherlands’ third final appearance and Spain’s first-ever.
Spain will be taking part in their first-ever final though they do have a recent big tournament win in Euro 2008 in their favour.
The Netherlands are looking to lift the trophy for the first time but they have reached two previous finals. They lost 2-1 against West Germany in 1974 and 3-1 against Argentina in 1978.
The Dutch are on a 25 match unbeaten run which stretches back to September 2008. The Netherlands are also on the verge of becoming only the second team to follow up a 100% record in qualifying by winning each and every game at the final tournament. 21 of those games have been won including all their World Cup qualifiers and just 4 have been drawn. The only side to do so previously was the legendary Brazil squad of Mexico 1970.
The Netherlands have won all six of their matches in this tournament, scoring 12 and conceding five. Wesley Sneij-der has been credited with five goals, while Arjen Robben, who missed most of the group stage games through injury has two. They have collected 15 yellow cards in the tournament so far but no Dutch player has seen red.
They opened their campaign at Soccer City with a 2-0 win over Denmark and went on top their group with wins over Japan (1-0) and Cameroon (2-1). In the knock-out stages, they beat Slovakia 2-1 and then dumped out Brazil by the same scoreline despite trailing 1-0 at half time, the only occasion they have fallen behind in any of their games.
Meanwhile, Spain are the reigning European champions. They have lost just two of their last 54 games, the 1-0 defeat to Switzerland in this tournament and last year’s Confederations Cup defeat against the USA. Only two of those games have been drawn and an incredible 50 have been won.
Spain started their campaign with a shock defeat to Switzerland before wins over Honduras (2-0) and Chile (2-1) proved good enough for them to top their group.
In the knock-out stages Spain won by a single goal against Portugal, again by single goal beat Paraguay in the quarter finals and most recently Germany in the semi finals. An intriguing sub-plot ahead of the Netherlands-Spain final will be the battle between Dutch attacking midfielder Wesley Sneijder and Spanish hitman, David Villa for the Golden Boot Award. Both the Inter Milan creator and Barcelona’s newly-signed forward are on five goals apiece, though both would surely forego that individual honour for a winners’ medal come Sunday night at Soccer City.
The first FIFA World Cup on African soil continues to throw up historic moments at every turn. On Wednesday this week, South Africa 2010 broke through the three-million spectator mark after 62 games played and with the final and the third place play-off still to come.
In FIFA World Cup tournament history, only at USA 1994 and Germany 2006 did more people catch the action at first hand.
The World Cup in South Africa will be remembered for many things, but one thing that will strike out the most is that, either Holland or Spain will become first time World Cup winner of a tournament held on African soil. (economist.com)


Fifa 2010 world cup trophy