Sneijder says Andres Iniesta's volley right at the death in extra time to hand Spain the 'Jules Rimet' trophy was suspiciously offside.
Speaking to KickOff.com the Inter Milan midfielder hammered English referee Howard Webb for the manner in which he handled the match, joining a chorus of criticism levelled at Webb, from the number of "unnecessary" yellow cards brandished to Arjen Robben's shout for a penalty. Sneijder's shock claim is, however, an isolated incident relating to Iniesta's last-gasp goal that looks perfectly fine on replay, but not in Sneijder's view.
"The goal was offside, that's all I want to say. There was also another moment when Iniesta kicked Mark van Bommel when the ball was not there. The fourth official saw it, but the referee didn't give a red card," claims Sneijder. "But we can be proud that we finished in second position in the World Cup," he says.
Netherlands midfielder Nigel de Jong tells KickOff.com the pain of losing to Spain in the World Cup Final is numbed by the bright future of the 'Oranje' team.
De Jong insists the future is bright. "It is definitely something that is comforting to the whole team knowing that the coaches have put together a team that if we stick together can represent the nation well in the next tournament. I think we have a great future ahead of us, because there are lots of players in the team that can still play for many years," he says.
De Jong further says he has high regard for English referee Howard Webb, who's been a subject of much criticism from some Netherlands players for his handling of the match, but De Jong concurs with his teammates that it was definitely not one of Webb's best matches he's officiated. The police sergeant was brandishing a yellow card after another resulting in 14 yellow cards, including John Heitinga's two bookable offences.
"In the end he had a big effect, that's obvious. I know him as a very good and I'm not saying he is not a good referee anymore but it was not his game," De Jong concludes.
Your comments on this story...
The rule of offside is that if the player has an impact on the flow of play that it must be blown dead, Iniesta obviously did have an impact as Van der Vaart was forced into the clearance, so by the rulebook it should have been blown dead. However it wasnt called, Spain scored and won the cup, but take another look at the goal if u doubt it.
I AM SORRY FOR THAT ALTHOUGH YOU ARE MY FRIEND BUT FOR REFUSING MAN UTD OFFER THAT IS WHY THE WORLD CUP PASSED BY YOU.SPAIN IS HAVING MAN UTD FORMER PLAYER GERERD PIQUE AND HAD IT BEEN YOU ACCEPTED THE OFFER THER QUEEN SHOULD HAVE CALLED WEBB AND GIVE HIM INSTRUCTIONS.
YOU PLAYED WELL BUT YOU LOST EVERYTHING FOR JUST REFUSING OUR OFFER NOT EVEN BEST PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT THAT WENT TO THE FORMER MAN UTD PLAYER YOU SEE EVERYTHING WAS MEANT FOR THE REAL PEOPLE MAN UTD,BEST PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT MANCHESTER UNITED FORMER PLAYER DIEGO FORLAN WORLD CUP WINNER FORMER MANCHESTER UNITED PLAYER GERARD PIQUE.
ALTHOUGH IT WAS'NT AN OFFSIDE HOWARD WEBB SHOULD HAVE CALLED FOR IT BUT ARJEN ROBBEN THAT REFUSED TO SCORE IS IT THE REFEREE THAT STOPPED HIM FROM SCORING YES I SAID IT WHEN HE MISSED THAT GOAL THAT HE WILL REGRET IT AND HE DID AT THE END.
BYE TILL 2014 IN RIO DE JENEIRO BRAZIL.
UDEMBA OF IBUSA.
Holland and Spain were a disgrace
Posted by: Simon68 (IP Logged)
Date: 12 July, 2010 11:44
This was no victory for football as the Spanish football loving BBC, the spoken and written media and just about everyone else wants to have us believe.
The Dutch approach towards this World Cup was totally wrong and I said so a while back. The final just got worse. Led by van Bommel they went out to stifle and kick. Two DCM's, Kuyt playing as an extra left back to stop Ramos, van der Weil never going past the halfway line, Robben just being selfish (as he always is) and sh*te, meant not one decent pass was played to RvP for 120 minutes. Pathetic. I said van Bommel was a liability and it proved to be the case last night. The managers son-in-law. Says it all really.
The Dutch manager should be sacked without delay and someone who wants the traditional values of the Dutch game back should be put in charge.
And Spain were hardly any better.
The first 3 fouls from the Dutch were just plain fouls, nothing hurtful, but you would have thought it was Shawcross or Taylor standard the way the Spanish players rolled over and over and the Spanish surrounded Webb waving imaginary cards. It may have been the first 5 or 6 'fouls' - there were so many instances of diving and playacting from Spain I lost count in my disgust.
Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Busquets, Capdevilla and the rest were all at it, diving and cheating, or at Webb. Xavi has not only been totally pedestrian at this WC, he's shown he has just as big a mouth on the field as off it.
If van Bommel wanted to put his spite to good use, or de Jong harness his undoubted kung fu abilities, then the best thing they could have done is make loads of us happy by twatting that f*cking big mouthed, cheating little c*nt Xavi in the face. Let's see him try and get players sent off all the time or talk about Cesc's barcelona DNA then.
As for people saying Webb and his officials had a good game, what f*cking planet are those people on?
The free-kick that Schneider took a few minutes before the goal hit first Cesc clearly in the shoulder area before being touched again by Casillas, yet he gave a goal kick. This was followed by a blatant block on Elia on the left edge of the Spain penalty area yet nothing was given. Then Iniesta was clearly offside from the ball that was headed to Cesc to set up Iniesta for ther goal. Offside should definitely have been given because the only intended recipient was Iniesta and the Dutch defender was forced into a weak header to cut the ball out. This was a direct event that influenced the goal.
Iniesta should not even have been on the pitch to score the goal. As well as being one of the worst players on the pitch, as he was in the semi-final, he committed a nasty foul that should have been a yellow card and then later should have been given a straight red for off the ball retaliation, even though it was van Bommel. On top of that he should have received at least one yellow card for cheating.
The Spanish in general were not averse to nasty and cynical fouls (two on RvP spring to mind) and Puyol committed a last man, sending off pull back on Robben far worse than the Iniesta falling over in a slight breeze piece of playacting that got Hietinger sent off. What an irony that Robben stayed on his feet for once in his life.
Del Bosque has been almost as culpable as the Dutch manager in his anti-football tactics.
What on earth makes people think that Xavi playing about 600 passes is watchable? The vast majority were sideways and backwards and served little purpose. He showed a complete lack of ambition and hardly made an effort to get forward. Villa, who was poor last night had little support during the entire WC. Torres was abysmal (injured?), Pedro anonymous last night, Iniesta couldn't wait to dive or just give the ball away. Navas looked lively, Alonso played pretty well, but, and although I am biased, Spain looked a much better team whenever Cesc was on the field. He added a dynamism which Spain lacked throughout the tournament. It was the same at Euro 2008. Unfortunately for Cesc, there are certain undroppables which hampers his progress.
The fact that Spain had 7 barcelona players on the pitch doesn't mean they will play like barcelona. A certain player called Messi raises barcelona several notches higher, which is why, although Spain won the WC, they were the best, maybe, (they should have gone out to Germany in the semi's if Ramos had been sent off and a penalty given) of a pretty ordinary bunch.
If del Bosque had anything about him, he should have dropped Xavi ages ago, put Alonso further forward and put Cesc in the role he played so well for half an hour last night and at other cameo appearances in South Africa. Spain would have then scored several more the pitiful 8 they managed in more than 7 full games. And been more entertaining. But if you want to stop the opposition from scoring, what better way to do it than keep the ball for most of the game? So what if you hope for a lucky break or a piece of individual skill to get you a 1-0 win? So Spain got lucky and they won the WC.
As for the BBC, what a shower of sh*t they are. Led by Hansen, castigating Holland for their tactics, yet condoning leg breaking and potential leg breaking tackles on Arsenal players week in, week out. Where was the 'To stop a team like Arsenal from playing you have to get amongst them and let them know you're there, otherwise they will kill you.' praise for Holland?
How the f*ck can Shearer sit there and condemn Holland for roughhouse tactics when he was one of the dirtiest centre forwards of the past 20 years? He would kick and elbow with the best of them. And Lee Dixon, an Arsenal great under George Graham mostly, wasn't averse to kicking the granny out of the likes of Ginola when necessary.
I'm glad it's over and we can get back to what's really important, footballistically.
Spain Play Ugly And Boring – Stifle Germany’s Beautiful Football
Posted on July 8, 2010 by Max Bergmann
Spain are now getting heaped with praise because they won. But I figured I would be a little bit like a Spaniard, and complain about how they won. I am ready to be called a Philistine – but I hate watching this Spanish team and found myself desperately rooting for Germany just so I wouldn’t have to watch the Spaniards play again.
Let’s be clear – Spain didn’t win because their possession after much futility finally unlocked the German defense. There was no beautiful moment. No, instead there was a committed, yet unmarked, defender scoring off a free header on a corner kick. How very German of them.
See, as a general fan of the Premier League, I have in the past been annoyed by the Spanish press and its football aficionados who complain that English teams (or those managed by Jose Morinho) don’t let Barca “play” their beautiful game. But what Spain have showed thus far in this tournament is anything but beautiful. I hate to say it, but Spain play boring uneventful soccer. Spain make it look like the objective of the game is to simply have more possession than the other team. They create few chances and play at a slow, er NBA, like pace. They bore the opponent into submission. They are the reincarnation of the famous Simpson’s take on soccer.
Spain have dominated possession in every game they have played and yet create shockingly few chances. Gary Lineker’s famous saying about football being played by 22 men running around a pitch and in the end the Germans win 1-0, could just as easily apply to Spain. The point here is that in many ways Spain are not dissimilar to the 2004 Greece team that won the European Championships or the classic organized and defensive German teams that won by sucking the life out of games and winning 1-0 on a free kick.
Now I can sense my readers disbelief (he is comparing Greece to Spain? That’s nuts). There is no question that Spain have tremendous players – by far the most technically gifted of any team – but they use their technique and skill to play a game that is as much about stifling their opponents, as it is about scoring. It is in many ways just as negative a style as those played by organized, defensive teams. Despite all the possession, Germany in fact created about as many truly threatening chances as Spain did. They defend by keeping possession. Spain simply do not take advantage of stretched defenses. On countless occasions there was an opportunity to take advantage of space that had been opened up, but no – the instinct of the Spanish players is not to push, not to risk losing the ball, it is to retain possession and to stop and pass the ball back.
So they are similar to Greece and old-Germany, in that while they used their size, strength and commitment to defensively stifle their opposition in 2004, Spain instead use their technique and skill to stifle their opponents. In this tournament, the Germans were playing beautiful fast football, and yesterday Spain killed that. Yes German tactics had something to do with it, but the game was very similar to watching Greece’s defensive masterpieces in 2004. The purists will say I don’t appreciate the artistry at work in playing a possession football – but the same could be said about Greece of 2004. Casual fans who wanted action, didn’t “appreciate” how tactically organized and disciplined Greece was and couldn’t appreciate the art of stalwart defending.
In 2008, this was not the case. Spain played played much more attacking, flowing soccer that utilized width with David Silva in place of the redundant Alonso. Now under Del Bosque Spain play with three players that are basically the same – Xavi, Iniesta, and Alonso. Yes they have their differences, but all three are central midfielders – and when Fabregas is thrown in they play with 4. They play in front of a Busquets a holding player.
The instincts of their “wide” players is always to cut inside. But by cutting inside their is absolutely no width on the left, instead there are 4 or 5 (since Pedro essentially played inside as well) other players that are basically also camped in the middle of the field. That is 6 players in the central midfield. This has made Spain exceptionally easy to defend. Since with no width, Spain’s only way of attacking at that point is to play hopeful precise through balls to Villa (which were easily dealt with – with one early exception), play 1-2s in tight space to put players through (these were easily dealt with), lay off the ball for Alonso to have a hit (why not I guess?), or hit it wide to Sergio Ramos and have him put in a cross that David Villa has no chance of winning against the German backline. That is all they got. And so despite loads of possession, Spain somehow score on a corner kick.
Just before Spain scored, there was an instructive moment, in which Iniesta was isolated on Germany’s right back Phillip Lahm just outside the 18. Lahm made a lazy lunge and Iniesta easily skipped by. Now most players would feverishly take advantage of the opening in space and push aggressively into the box and put in a cross. Well not Iniesta, and not Spain. Instead, Iniesta casually moved into the area but instead of putting in a cross he stopped and stood on the ball, allowing the covering German defender to recover and put the ball out of play.
In the final Against the Dutch, the game will be similar. Spain will control the ball, the chances will be about equal and someone will one-nil, most likely the Spanish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SASM_NzheK0&feature=related
Referee denied a corner kick to Netherlands just before the final moments of game, which might have clearly disappointed player's.
Also Spain's goal is controversial, Assistant referee should have blown the whistle but at this moment too referee's remained silent.
Several previous matches in 2010 World Cup especially with England,Mexico,Portugal,Ghana & this final match have ruined football lover's faith in FIFA World Cup matches.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-IcvwsYm9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA2VL_MuhM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcGvYgzq6yg&feature=related
VIVA SPAIN!!!!!!!
WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS & LAUGH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-IcvwsYm9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA2VL_MuhM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcGvYgzq6yg&feature=related