Spain may have flopped a bit, but the Dutch have arguably been the worst flopping team of the tournament. So it's hard to call the Spanish on something the Dutch (imo) were consistently guilty of themselves. On top of that, they were overly brutish. Just a bad combination for me.
I don't mind a technical, creative, beautiful football-playing team who flops a bit. Or a tough, physical team who plays hard, relies on counter attacks, but doesn't play act all game long & just gets on with it.
But to me somewhere along the way the Dutch became both the biggest actors AND the most physical (borderline dirty). For me, as the cup progressed, this began to leave an increasingly bad taste in my mouth. Just my own take that's all. I went from rooting for them, to tolerating, to "ok somebody needs to beat these guys" pretty quickly.
Xavi & Iniesta were, from my end, 2 of the shining lights. Yes they draw (sometimes questionable) fouls. But they're great players who offered a large percentage of the few inspired moments in an otherwise rough final. And they're pretty humble guys, as far as superstars go. Sorry but w/ todays spoiled megastars, these 2 are pretty damn good. I think Iniesta somehow gets caught in between xavi/messi purgatory. I was reading all these "wc best xi" teams & nobody had him in their team. I think if xavi & messi were genetically engineered to crossbreed, iniesta would be the result. He can do much of what either those 2 do, but the reverse isn't true. Helluva player.
