Spanish Tide

Yesterday's World Cup championship game was one of the most tedious and poorly played soccer games I have ever seen. The overall quality of the play was far more mediocre than I expected from two national teams that had never won the Cup before, especially when the Spanish team was playing for the FIFA championship for the first time in the tournament's history. The biggest miracle in Johannesburg was that anyone scored at all.

That said, I'm glad the Spaniards won with that goal at literally the last minute. Spain played diligently and arduously throughout the tournament; they deserve the victory. Some people might be tempted to compare this to the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. It's not that big. It's bigger.

The Netherlands? I'm kind of glad they lost. The Dutch playing style in this World Cup was aggressive to the point of being nasty. I don't care if they were in their third championship game and lost yet again; I come from a country that was in the same boat with Spain until now. Besides, it's hard to get excited about the Dutch. Because apart from founding New York City, giving the world Rembrandt and Van Gogh, cultivating tulips, building levees and dikes that don't collapse, perfecting wind energy, and reclaiming land from the sea, what have the Dutch really done for Western civilization? ;-)