The referee for the final was Howard Webb, representing The Football Association of England. The Netherlands squad draws its players from clubs in five European countries, with just nine based in the Netherlands six play in Germany, five in England, two in Italy and one in Spain. Going into the final, Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands and David Villa of Spain were tied as the top scorers with five goals each Arjen Robben of the Netherlands with two was the only other player in the finalists' squads with more than one goal in the tournament.Īll but three members of the Spanish squad play for clubs in Spain the other three are based in England. In the six games both teams played in South Africa to reach the final, the Netherlands scored a total of twelve goals and conceded five, while Spain scored seven and conceded two. The semi-final was a repeat of the match up for the UEFA Euro 2008 Final, and again saw Spain beat Germany, who were the top scorers of the 2010 tournament up to that point. In the knockout stage, they then beat their Iberian neighbours Portugal, quarter-final debutants Paraguay and three-time World Cup winners Germany. In Group H, Spain recovered from a loss to Switzerland in their opening game to beat Honduras and then Chile, finishing top of the group ahead of Chile on goal difference. The Netherlands reached the Final in a 25-match unbeaten streak since September 2008. In the knockout stage, they beat World Cup debutants Slovakia, five-time champions Brazil and two-time champions Uruguay.
Once at the finals in South Africa, the Netherlands reached the knockout stage as winners of Group E, with three wins out of three against Denmark, Japan and Cameroon, conceding only one goal. The Netherlands entered the World Cup having won all eight matches in their UEFA Group 9 qualifying campaign.
Spain entered the 2010 World Cup as the reigning UEFA European Football Champions, having won UEFA Euro 2008, and as the shared holders of the international football record of consecutive unbeaten games for a national team, spanning 35 matches from 2007 to 2009 they also won all 10 matches of their qualifying campaign. Thus, the finalists combined for 4211 points, by far the highest for any international football match ever played, beating the previous record of 4161 combined points for the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final between Hungary and West Germany. Spain became just the eighth country to win the World Cup, joining England and France as nations who have won it just once.īefore the match Spain had an Elo rating of 2111 points and the Netherlands a rating of 2100 points. It was the first World Cup final not to feature at least one of Brazil, Italy, Germany or Argentina. Overall, Germany leads with four final losses. The Netherlands played in its third final without a win, surpassing the record it had shared with Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Spain became the 12th different country to play in a World Cup Final, and first new team since France in 1998. Reaching the 2010 final was Spain's best performance in the World Cup, having previously finished fourth in 1950 when the tournament had a round-robin final stage, and the quarter-finals stage in 1934, 1986, 19, when single elimination knock-out stages featured. The Netherlands were runners-up twice before, losing 2–1 to West Germany in 1974, and 3–1 to Argentina in 1978. It was the first time since the 1978 final that neither of the finalists had previously won the World Cup. In all-time head-to-head results, the teams had met nine times previously since 1920, winning four games each and drawing once, in either friendlies, European Championship qualifying games, and once in the 1920 Summer Olympics. Prior to this game, the Netherlands and Spain had never met each other in the main tournament stages of either a World Cup or a European Championship, the two major tournaments for European international teams.
0 kommentar(er)
