well, I'm going to say something crazy here, but maybe this is for the best. I can't deny that spain was the best team throughout most of the match even though we had our moments of excellent play later in the first half and were dominant at the start of the second half. we had the best chances. the final sequence that led to the goal by iniesta was extremely dubious, given that it came from a goal kick that should have been a corner, and ramos made a foul that the referee didn't see. the game was dirty on holland's side, but that was mostly in the first half. after that, webb should have known better than to foul us every time he saw a spanish player rolling around on the grass.

this has been a strange tournament. there haven't been many goals, and the only way we could have won it is through penalties after a relatively poor match. I wanted us to win, but I'm not sure I would have wanted us to win in this manner.

Yeah I agree with this, there were quite a few bad calls in the 2nd half. I can't remember but I think the red card wasn't realllllyyy a heavy contact even. Holland deserved everything they got in the 1st half though, probably more, it was quite kind to let them stay as 11 men at half time. That flying kick to the chest should have been a straight red I think.

it wasn't red because it wasn't intentional, terrible as it was. you'd have to be totally crazy to do that for real and think you can get away with it.

also, during the second major chance by robben, puyol fouled him and should have gotten his second yellow card. the referee didn't give it to him. the second half was full of fouls by spain, including some pretty damning dives that got us some cards too. but it doesn't matter in the end, everybody's going to think of these criticisms as being the throes of a sore loser. in the end, the only countries that anybody cares about are spain and germany. and that's really the worst thing of this result.

...and now cue nobody caring about soccer for another four years again.

depends. where do you live?