On behalf of neutrals the world over, I’m hoping for a memorable World Cup final.
But while my heart’s holding out for an edge-of-your-seat thriller, my head says we’re not likely to get one.
Understandable, perhaps, given that a dour pragmatism so often wins the day at World Cup finals.
There’s simply too much at stake for risk-taking.
Teams play not to lose, which is why finals are almost always anticlimactic.
Hard to see that changing given neither Spain nor Holland has lifted the Jules Rimet trophy before.
And so, regrettably, I expect that this will most likely be a carbon copy of the Spain-Germany semifinal; a match that, to me, bordered on the unwatchable.
I know it sounds blasphemous to say, but as great as they are, Spain can be very boring to watch.
There’s an undeniable artistry in the way they string together all those intricate passes but too often the play’s missing a je ne sais quoi.
At Barcelona — and let’s face it, this Spanish selection is essentially Barca in a slightly different shirt -- the endeavor of Busquets and Puyol and the midfield majesty of Xavi and Iniesta is magically turned into goals by the genius that is Lionel Messi.
Spain, to me, is missing a Messi.
David Villa is very good but he‘s Salieri to Messi‘s Mozart.
And it doesn’t help that Fernando Torres isn‘t himself.
Without that killer blow around the penalty box, what we’re likely to get in Johannesburg on Sunday is a whole lot of Spanish possession which will amount to not very much.
Of course, what it’ll do is deny Holland the ball and the best way to keep a team from scoring is to starve them of possession. No one knows that better than Spain.
So Spain will play as they do.
But the real question is how will the Dutch respond?
In soccer, just as in boxing, styles make fights.
Holland has to know that Spain will patiently jab away until the Dutch drop their guard, at which point they’re punished and the victory is guarded till the final whistle.
What if the Dutch go all Mike Tyson on Spain and come out swinging, looking for the knock-out?
It’s an approach filled with risk, to be sure, but if the men in orange learned anything from the German semifinal failure, it had to be that conservative, cautious tactics only serve to ensure a death by a thousand Spanish passes.
Xavi hasn’t been dispossessed since his mother took away his pacifier; you could wait a month of Sundays before Iniesta makes a bad pass. What makes the Dutch think that’s going to change on Sunday?
It was interesting the wash-up to the semifinal that both the Spanish midfield generals were surprised that the Germans didn’t take the game to them.
"The Germans were scared of giving us space and we hadn't expected them to be so defensively minded," said Iniesta. "They allowed us to have the ball.”
Germany’s coach, Joachim Loew, now sees the folly of his the approach.
“We were not able to play like previous matches,” he said, “We were not able to get rid of our inhibitions."
Pity this hadn’t occurred to him before the game.
Manuel Neuer, Germany’s goalkeeper, was blunter in his assessment.
"We didn't quite have the courage we needed," he said. "We didn't show enough attacking intent and we failed to create enough chances.”
The Dutch talisman, Wesley Sneijder, knows something about beating a team like this; his Inter Milan handily defeated Barcelona in the Champions League this season.
Holland is far more attacking-minded that Jose Mourinho’s Inter -- who were content to build a defensive wall and then launch quick and effective counter-attacks -- and in Robin Van Persie, Arjen Robben and Sneijder the Dutch have more potent scoring threats.
So why not come out swinging?
Holland has to know that an early goal will change the tone of the final.
But they’ll have to go in search of one and that’ll require a bit of Dutch courage.
Sneijder, for one, seems to understand.
“We have to shed our inhibitions,” he said.
Robert Lusetich is a senior writer for FOXSports.com.
