Ironically, even the English thought the World Cup final was tedious anti-football

The tedium of the first period was relieved by a single significant chance for each side, Maarten Stekelenburg brilliantly parrying Ramos's header in the fifth minute and Iker Casillas responding 40 minutes later with a sprawling stop to deny Arjen Robben. But the tenor of the match was more accurately expressed when Pedro Rodríguez attempted to drive through the Dutch rearguard only to be surrounded by five orange shirts.

Little changed in the minutes after the interval there were boos as the yellow cards mounted, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, John Heitinga and Joan Capdevila being the next to earn Webb's disapproval. You had to feel sorry for the Englishman, who had probably hoped, on such a gala occasion, to be able to referee the match with a light touch.

Even the harshest critic would admit that Xavi, Robben, Iniesta, Wesley Sneijder, David Villa and Van Persie were doing their best to break the deadlock, but systems were strangling the match – particularly the system of defence devised by Bert van Marwijk, with two uncompromisingly destructive midfield players in front of the four-man defence. Even there it was possible to admire, in a detached kind of way, the discipline and intensity with which the Dutch defenders flew into their interceptions – as, to be fair, did their Spanish counterparts at the other end.

Defending well is as much a part of the game as scoring goals, but if ever there was a final to lend credibility to the concept of anti-football, this was it. Goodness knows what the audiences in front of the big screens in Madrid and Amsterdam, places were they expect something different, were making of it. The players of England, France and Italy, who left the tournament in disrepute and humiliation, must have been watching on their holiday islands and having a good giggle.


World Cup final: Holland and Spain's anti-football lets Europe down