It bugs me. I'm sorry, but it does. It took 0.03 seconds from the final whistle at Soccer City on Sunday night for Alan Shearer to jump on football's laziest, most cliche-driven bandwagon when he said, 'it was a victory for football'.
Before you castigate me for getting a little off-topic, I know we said we'd talk about British sport. And the closest that Spain gets to being British is when half the population of our country invades it for the summer, grazing on semi-cooked hamburgers, drinking too much, tanning till we go lobster-pink and pissing all over somebody else's beach. But a World Cup only comes but once every four years, and for an England fan it only lasts a few short on-field hours (I have every sympathy for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland fans, who must surely watch England and come to the inescapable conclusion that they could hardly do worse.)
Spain. In Iker Casillas, they have the best goalkeeper in the world. Barcelona-bound David Villa is a lethal goalscorer proven at the top level. In Xavi and Andres Iniesta, they have two ball-playing midfielders with a knack for scoring vital goals. In Pique and Puyol, they have defenders who are solid, unspectacular and good in the air, but lacking in speed and with a tendency towards occasional silly mistakes. Sound like any team you know?
Spain. European and now world champions, wizards who turn pomp and flair into searing performances and bagfuls of goals, wowing fans everywhere with their skill and temerity.
Er, no.
World Cup finals are by precedent, unholy travesties of the game for which they are supposed to represent a sacred pinnacle. Victory over a Dutch side who had apparently turned up for a karate tournament rather than a football match was certainly a victory for skill over conduct little short of thuggery, but it was hardly a spectacle worthy of the beautiful game. The winner, a spitting half-volley bludgeoned home despite a suspicion of offside from the first ball forward, was an apt winner in a thoroughly torrid affair.
Spain keep possession. That much is true. They play with grace and patience, and they grind out results, with no less than 50 of their last 55 results being wins. For this, perhaps they are worthy of the title of best of a lacklustre bunch. But this Spain team are not entertainers.
As France, England and Italy self-destructed around them, Spain threatened to do likewise by fudging through the group stage. After defeat by a spirited Swiss side, they would surely not even have qualified for the second round had they faced another group opponent with slightly more verve than either Honduras or Chile, the former of which surely dispel the notion that there are no easy international matches.
Then to the second round, where they edged a second-rate Portugese side by a goal, and Paraguay, where they nearly came undone after their opponents missed a penalty. Having meandered this far, they encountered free-scoring Germany in a tie that could have defined everything that was special about the tournament. The result? A tetchy, scrappy affair decided by a header from a corner. 1 - 0 again.
This post is not an effort to deny Spain their perch at the top of world football. However, I am suggesting that the style of their play and the reason for their success owes more to Catennacio than Catalonia. There are precious few truly top-class sides out there at the moment and the seeming worldwide trend for the 4-5-1 formation (with obligatory world-class playmaker at the apex of the 5) is threatening to turn world football into a game of counter-attack without attackers. But for all those who would instantly salute Spain's triumph as a victory for football, I suspect that the true fan would still rather watch Germany, Argentina or Uruguay.
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