As if you weren’t happy enough about football this weekend, here’s Match Centre!
Another season of first-class football is upon us, and here at AFR we finally think we’re ready for it all. We’re introducing a wonderfully necessary new section: Match Centre. Match Centre speaks for itself. It will be a new home for all insightful match previews, reports, and of course live coverage with the AFR team. While we’ve already been swept away from Joe Hart’s magisterial goalkeeping and Blackpool’s fighting spirit, we’ll compose ourselves soon enough then provide you with some of the best coverage to be found in the world from writers across the globe. You can also have a look at all the live scores at http://matchcentre.afootballreport.com/livescores
Source: matchcentre
Spain Are Kings Of The World!
By Dominic Vieira, writing from Portugal
The world has been painted red and yellow! Andres Iniesta made history last night scoring the winning goal in the grand final against the Netherlands in front of 85,000 at Soccer City, Johannesburg. The 26-year-old majestically controlled a sublime Fabregas pass in the 116th before blasting the ball in the back of Stekelenburg’s goal. It was a very close battle between two strong, organised, and collective European sides.
The best and most consistent team won their first ever World Cup trophy which was lifted by Iker Casillas, the best goalkeeper of the tournament.
The Netherlands were not able to make it 3 times lucky after successive defeats in 74 and 78. Overall their performance was sub par; they defended well but rarely caused danger for Iker Casillas as they had several problems organizing and constructing scoring opportunities. However, Arjen Robben was the best Dutch player of the night. He had a golden chance to score in the second half but his was one vs one attempt was brilliantly saved by the Spanish captain. The Orange never managed to find their rhythm and most of the time were defending with 10 players, Kuyt was constantly playing as a left back. The Netherlands will continue being known as the best football nation to have never won the tournament, 2014 will be on their minds.
To be honest, it was not Spain’s top performance either. The Dutch closed them down in most of the times which made it hard for them to play their “tiki-taka” passing game, however they dominated both halves. The Orange managed to block the spaces where the likes of Xavi and Iniesta pass the ball to which made them focus passing the ball down the flanks, Sergio Ramos was a constant threat. David Villa, one of the tournament’s best player was playing in a central position instead of his preferred left side. His position and the aggressive marking from the centre-backs made it challenging for him to make an impact on the pitch. He was not able to become the tournament’s top goalscorer, instead Thomas Müller did for Germany. Spain are a complete team which have been playing top class football 4 years.
NED vs SPA: The Grand European Final
By Dominic Vieira, writing from Portugal
The whole world stops on Sunday the 11th at 19:30PM GMT to turn their attention to one nation. One nation which has represented a unique continent filled with a myriad of passion, happiness, colour, music, love and devotion for the most popular sport on earth, football. The World Cup final kicks off where the competition started; at Soccer City in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Not a soul will want miss the clash between European giants Netherlands and the almighty Spain. Neither of the teams have won lifted the World Cup, Spain are playing in their first final where as the Netherlands are aiming to make it 3 times lucky after losing consecutive finals in 74 and 78. Either Casillas or Van Bronckhorst will be holding the most desired cup and making history as they as part of the first European nation to win the tournament outside of Europe. Can this final get more exciting?
Despite an African team not fulfilling the greatest dream, playing in the first World Cup final on African soil, the locals will not plan on missing the grand final and will certainly create a beautiful atmosphere amongst the 94,000 spectators. This match is not a one sided game and as it is a final, neither team can be labelled as the favourite.
Spain breaks German hearts once again
By Ulysse Pasquier, writing from Paris
There was no sweet revenge for Germany on Wednesday night as the remake of the Euro-final ended in the same result as it did back in 2008, with a 1-0 win for Spain. The one difference in Durban however was seeing Fernando Torres, scorer of the winning goal two years ago, left out on the bench after a series of poor performances. It has been an overwhelmingly disappointing World Cup so far for the Liverpool striker and replacing him with Pedro turned out to be a very positive move for Del Bosque’s men.
La Roja, which had lost just twice in its last 53 matches, was hoping to use this amazing run of form to reach their first ever World Cup final. They had the difficult task however of getting past Germany who were on a very good spell of their own, defeating both England and Argentina with comfortable margins. The Mannschaft were without their “star” striker Thomas Müller who had been playing fantastically in the tournament but suspended for the semifinals.
The match started slowly as there was clearly a lot of respect between the players who knew each other considerably well. Spain took control of the game in the opening stages and kept most of the possession for the rest of the 90 minutes. The first warning came in the 6th minute when Pedro completely cut open the German defense with a through ball to David Villa, who’s shot was blocked by Neuer. Pedro had an inspiring first half and brought a spark to this Spanish team where Torres had been almost invisible. More pressure was put on the German goal in the 13th minute as a slick combination between Ramos and Iniesta found a free Carlos Puyol in the box whose header flew just over the bar.
