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Originally Posted by SonicBebs
relentless pressure is right. you have to be really good (or lucky) to beat this team. To be solid and organised for 90 minutes and run around chasing shadows and trying to 2nd gues where xavi or alonso or iniesta are gonna put the ball must be exhausting. To then have the legs to break and actually hit them on the break is near on impossible. If any one could (organised defence, awsome on the counter attack) it was germany.
The netherlands only hope is to hold out for penalties
The dutch haven't got good enough players
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Eh?
Don't think Holland are gonna park the bus vs Spain. That's only worked for Switzerland so far and it's not their style.
Sure, Spain may have the better players and the passing they showed vs Germany was absolutely phenomenal (half their team plays together on a daily basis at Barcelona), but for all their skills and talent they've been hardly effective, scoring barely 7 goals in 6 games. If Spain win by scoring less than 4 goals on Sunday, they'll be the lowest scoring World Cup winner of all time. Brazil won it with 11 in 1994.
They'll need to be more effective than they were Wednesday because I doubt they'll get the same amount of chances. I think Germany (whom I have to give much credit for their impressive style of playing this tournament!), being a young and fairly inexperienced side, were showing way too much respect for Spain.
The ball posession stats said Germany 39% vs Spain 61%. I guarantee you that Holland won't let them see as much of the ball. And yes, that does mean they will get physical if needed. Van Bommel and De Jong certainly won't have their eyes on the popularity prize. Question is whether they'll get booked in the 10th minute or the 80th minute and what the score will be at that time. I think the main battle will be about who controls midfield. Sneijder or Xavi?
Don't get me wrong, I think Spain clearly should be considered favourites, but I'm fairly sure that Holland will score, like they've done in each and every game. The question is whether Spain can profit from Holland sitting less deep than their earlier opponents or not and can score more than 1 this time.
Personally of course I hope that Holland can finally excorcise the demons of '74 and '78 and everyone's favourite player Mark van Bommel will be lifting the cup in the end, which isn't called the Jules Rimet cup anymore ever since Brazil got to keep that one after winning it a 3rd time in 1970. It got stolen later and has never been recovered.