Skipper

I'm not really a fan of soccer but, as a sports fan in general felt I had to watch the final on Sunday. I might just have not bothered, so wretched was the display by the Dutch. Once the exponents of fluid, graceful and highly skilled football -the likes of Kyuff, Bergkamp, Gullit, Van Nistelroy spring to mind- their team, realising they couldn't match the Spanish skill, descended to brutal physical fouls, shirt tugging, trips and provocations more usually associated with the worst of South American football. Mark Van Bommell should have been sent off in the first half and throughout made Vinnie Jones seem like Mother Theresa.

And yet the Dutch players and officials blame poor old Howard Webb, from Yorkshire for their loss! It really is shameful of them to deny their own appalling behviour. At least Johan Cruyff saw it as it was played like all the rest of us:

Regrettably, sadly, they played very dirty. So much so that they should have been down to nine immediately, then they made two [such] ugly and hard tackles that even I felt the damage. If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they ended up losing. They were playing anti-football."

I thought Webb did as much as he could to keep the game 'level' with 11 players on both sides but he could easily have sent of 2 or 3 Dutch palyers before half time. He did his best to control players who refused to be controlled. They have shamed their brilliant tradition in my view.