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發表於 2010-7-11 10:15:34
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Netherlands v Spain: A date with destiny
By John Brewin, Johannesburg
Sign of Victory is one of the too-small number of anthems blasted out on permanent rotation in the stadia of South Africa 2010. Those in attendance at multiple matches are probably sick to the back teeth of the sound of R. Kelly's overwrought paean to the sporting gods, but its title may still have resonance. This is a final that is very close to call, with several pointers signalling victory for each team, and none of them is yet telling. Both have compelling cases to offer ahead of the promise of an absorbing clash of styles.
The unbeaten Dutch look to equal history and the game's greatest international team of Brazil '70 in winning every game from their first qualifier to the final while Spain can look to their own history-equalling. Should they follow victory at Euro 2008 with a World Cup triumph at Soccer City, they will follow on from the West Germans of 1972 and 1974. Whoever wins, a new name is to enter the annals of world champions and with it the label of being first European nation to win outside its own continent.
This was hoped to be a tournament in which a continent was to finally assert itself on the world stage. So it has proved, but not in the expected fashion. While plaudits can be aimed in the direction of Africa for its enthusiasm and warm welcomes in hosting this tournament, its participation was curtailed either too early or, in the case of Ghana, in the cruellest of fashions. Instead, Sunday's final provides a showcase for Europe's finest. South America was all but sent packing in the quarter-finals while, as expected, Asia, Oceania and the other Americas exited no later than from the second round.
Back in safe European homes, there has been much belly-aching about the lessening of international football in the face of the economic dominance of the club game. But it should be noted that the origins of the disquiet are from those for whom the World Cup lost its sheen after early exits. Italy were deposed as champions in humiliating style to remind that Inter Milan's Champions League final victory came with nary an Italian in sight, unless you count the injury-time arrival of glorified mascot Marco Materazzi. English reaction has been churlish, the self-satisfaction of the Premier League pricked by the high farce offered by supposed stars whose shortcomings are clearly couched by foreign talent at domestic level.
Try telling the Uruguayans, up for one more party in the third-place match, or even the Germans after the flourishing of a young team of whom much will be expected in future, that international football is a sideshow. Pointless, of course, to even bother asking the Dutch or Spanish. Though continuity has been important to both, the finalists have arrived at this juncture via different formulae. The Dutch have long been the cosmopolitan emigres, with their team drawn from leagues across Europe, while the Spanish have only recently become good travellers and, even now, only the trio of Cesc Fabregas, Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina, with David Silva to follow suit soon, play away from the Primera Liga.
Many connections have been made to the Spanish playing a game with Dutch roots, such is the influence of Barcelona on La Furia Roja. Six players who played against Germany began their journey to Soccer City by learning football in the Barcelona fashion, impressed on the club by Johan Cruyff in the era of 'Dream Team', of which Barca coach Pep Guardiola was the pivot, the latterday Xavi. But Spain's game also draws heavily from Real Madrid, not least in the influence of coach Vicente del Bosque, a rare Bernabeu survivor in the early part of the last decade, who adds his own pragmatism to the mix. Neither as voluble nor as quotable as predecessor Luis Aragones, the gruff hang-dog Castilian speaks only of results and performances. Just as his Madrid teams lacked the flair of the following galacticos era but delivered far better results, this Spain team may well trump European success with a global triumph achieved via a more measured approach.
Cruyff, ever the contrarian in backing Spain, has spoken of his abhorrence for the Dutch style of play, with its reliance on two midfield anchormen in Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong who do not belong in the lineage of 'Total Football' men like Wim van Hanegem or Johan Neeskens. Xavi and Andres Iniesta may be more his type of player but then again Bert van Marwijk, whatever happens on Sunday, is already able to say his team, in reaching a final, equalled the exploits of his more fabled forerunners. And, after all, Van Marwijk is a Feyenoord man, among other clubs, and thus not steeped in the pretensions of such ideas as 'the Ajax system'. The promise of Marco van Basten's team at the Euros has been given a steelier edge by a more experienced coach, for which Brazil and the Uruguayans can vouch.
This is no affair of beauty versus beast. Both teams can supply either facet. In Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, the Dutch have players the Spaniards would happily accommodate and a Barcelona veteran in Gio van Bronckhorst who supplied the goal of the tournament in the semi-final. And the Dutch have been involved in two of the best games of the knockout rounds while Spanish progress has been achieved by a whispering death approach of three consecutive 1-0 wins where an opponent has eventually succumbed after a laborious chess-game. And not a little luck was ridden in the case of the Paraguayan quarter-final where penalty-saving Iker Casillas was the man surrounded by thankful team-mates in the immediate aftermath of victory. See also the supplier of the semi-final winner, none other than battle-hardened rocker Carles Puyol.
By such means, Spain find themselves two stages beyond their normal departure date of the quarter-finals. The days of early promise being superseded by crashing disappointment have been turned on their head. An early setback in losing their first game refined every game's importance and thus focus has needed to be maintained right from what would normally look a 'gimme' in the shape of Honduras. Del Bosque is now painting the Swiss loss as a turning point.
No such need for Van Marwijk. Even that drab opening win against Denmark was a pointer to the strength of his team, and by the time Netherlands had removed Brazil, few could have been surprised by their eventual presence in the final.
Dutchmen may have thought their hopes of global glory had gone with the likes of Cruyff, perhaps with the disasters of the Van Basten-Gullit-Rijkaard generation in this tournament and lastly when Bergkamp and co lost on penalties in the semi-final of 1998, but they are in their third final after an absence of 32 years. Spain's current team, already their best ever, have the chance to wash away the disappointments suffered so often by legendary players like Zamora, Suarez, Butragueno and Raul at World Cups.
Sunday provides a time for heroes in which history shall be debunked as well as made.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/wor ... 4716&ver=global
到底是告魯夫的又一挫敗，還是荷蘭足運從此走上匈牙利之路呢？矛盾啊...... 
還有，現在的荷蘭足球，就叫做「功能足球」吧。 |
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