Today is an article by guest blogger, Stephen Constantine. A UEFA Pro License Holder & FIFA Instructor, Constantine is the manager of Apep FC in the Cyprus 1st Division and the author of the book, A Year In the Championship from his time at Millwall F.C.
Well so much for the total football that Dutch football was based upon , the days of Cryuff, Neskeens, Guillt and the tactical genius or Rinus Michles are well and truly over. Replaced by the likes of De Jong, Van Bommel and the persistent moaning of Robben !!!! they disgraced Dutch football in all respects……..they then have the ghoul to blame the referee .
I have never in all my life seen a performance like we witnessed last night, how Van Bommel went 4 games without a booking is beyond belief , how De Jong was not shown an immediate red for his chest high kick on Alonso and then had the nerve to complain to Alonso for acting !again is unbelievable, yet had Webb followed the letter of the law for every time the Dutch mugged a Spanish player the game would have had to been abandoned…..I do find fault with the referee on several points, for example Robben, when will he start to play the football he is capable of and stop acting like a spoilt child who was on a yellow card gets caught for offside , he then proceeds to round the keeper and shoot even though the whistle has gone and everyone has stopped, why was he not shown a second yellow card !!! Minutes later a Spanish player does exactly the same thing and gets the card! The overall behaviour of the Dutch was insulting to all who play the beautiful game and to those who were watching ….thank god the Spanish won and more importantly football won, because had the Dutch won this game last night it would have sent the wrong message to anyone watching.
I am all for getting stuck in and playing hard but this was truly over the top and FIFA really need to stamp this out. Don’t get me wrong here I love Dutch football and we saw flashes of their undoubted brilliance but come one how can they resort to such tactics. Lets also not forget that amongst all this they had 2 one v one’s in the shape of Robben who else that they actually could have won the game late on, why are the Dutch not talking about that ???? ……..sorry guys after last night the reputation of Dutch football has taken a severe step backward………..Well done to Spain who were overall the best team in the World Cup and deserve to be called World Cup Champions…….
