Ugly football condemns Dutch

JOHANNESBURG (AP):

The Dutch were bent on showing that they could win ugly for their first World Cup title, but they only got the ugly part right.

With eight yellow cards, one red and endless arguing that even spilled over beyond the final whistle, the Netherlands lost much more than 1-0 to Spain in the final - they lost a lot of their credibility as creative masters as well.

Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk changed the 'Total Football' of flair and spontaneity of the 1970s into 'Result Football', using cynical plotting for victory.

The outcome was the same - the Netherlands are still waiting for their first World Cup.

A look of disgust

Van Marwijk took his silver medal off as soon as he walked off the podium, with a look of disgust on his face.

"Our fouls may be a sad thing for a final, but it is not our style," Van Marwijk said.

Four years after Zinedine Zidane was sent off in the final, it was John Heitinga's turn for collecting his second yellow card in the 109th minute. At that time, six Dutch players had already been booked and two more were to follow.

"I would have loved to win it with football that is not so beautiful," Van Marwijk said.

With a team flush with talent, only Arjen Robben shone yesterday and almost gave the Dutch a breakthrough goal twice on darting runs through the centre. Each time, Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas was perfect in blocking his attempts.

"You felt that the team that would score first would win," Van Marwijk said. "We had two great chances through Arjen. We made a real game out of it."

Victories over beauty

Two years ago, the coach picked victories over beauty, sacrilege at a time when Dutch football prided itself on producing the most Brazilian football in all of Europe. But while Brazil have five titles to show for it, the Netherlands carry the disappointing tag of being the best team never to have won the World Cup.

Van Marwijk has taught his team to win ugly when it needed and they started doing so. And as long as they won in South Africa, six victories in a row, all was well.

Millions in the Netherlands painted every village and town orange and thousands travelled to Johannesburg happy such football brought them within one game of winning the World Cup.

When it counted, though, their creativity was stifled and the nastiness came out.

Reflecting his intimidating and cynical play all through the tournament, midfielder Mark van Bommel went straight over to referee Howard Webb in the Spanish half at the end of the game to protest and was soon joined by Wesley Sneijder, Robben and a gesticulating Joris Mathijsen.

"We are angry that we lost because we came so close," Netherlands forward Dirk Kuyt said. "I know you cannot blame others, but the ref was more favourable to Spain.

"We had much more yellow cards than we deserved."

After being involved in the dirtiest World Cup match in history, a round of 16 loss to Portugal which featured four red cards and 16 yellows four years ago, the Dutch now were the overwhelming contributor in the dirtiest World Cup final. And they lost again.

They collected three yellow cards in the first half and should have received four. Robin van Persie and Van Bommel were penalised for bad tackles and Nigel de Jong was lucky to escape with only yellow when he kicked Xabi Alonso high in the chest. Sneijder should have been given a yellow for a high tackle on Sergio Busquets. And that was only the first half.

Ever more they started haranguing Webb and Robben also got a yellow for protesting. And on it went until Mathijsen earned Oranje's last yellow in the 117th minute for protesting.

"If the referee made good decisions, then it's a different game," Netherlands forward Eljero Elia said.

World Cup Winners

2010 - Spain

2006 - Italy

2002 - Brazil

1998 - France

1994 - Brazil

1990 - West Germany

1986 - Argentina

1982 - Italy

1978 - Argentina

1974 - West Germany

1970 - Brazil

1966 - England

1962 - Brazil

1958 - Brazil

1954 - West Germany

1950 - Uruguay

1938 - Italy

1934 - Italy

1930 - Uruguay