Paul the Octopus has retired

Thankfully that total waste of time, space and money is over.

Perhaps people may realise that the game is as dull as ditchwater and they are being conned left right and centre but I doubt it.

Big problem with this is the potential for home advantage meaning consecutive wins, or at the very least locking the World Cup down to one continent. For example; Brazil are the next hosts. If they win they'd host again, how long before it's prized away from them? And it would likely take a very long time for a European team to win it again, if ever. Could kill the event.

How do you know the games were dull if you didn't watch them?

I was wondering that myself

Shame the biggest football match in 4 years was effectively decided by a major refereeing blunder.

It would have been decided much earlier if the Dutch had been reduced to 10 men in the first half, as they should have been. How it took so long I'll never know. The Dutch tried to spoil it and deserved to lose regardless of the circumstances.

also like Eurovision the costs are so high to stage it that you'd get nations intentionally not wanting to win, like Ireland allegedly did in Eurovision years ago (as parodied on Father Ted)

Agreed, it would have been an even bigger shame for football if they'd got that corner and managed to score the winner from it.

They had plenty of chance to deal with the Spanish attack that led to the goal, whining on about things that happened 1-2 minutes before it happened doesn't cut it with me.

Roll on Euro 2012 in Poland and The Ukraine. Germany and Spain must be favourites for that one already.

The French will be back with a bang. Easily the second best side in Europe on paper, with an actual manager in charge now and the old heads gone, I think (if the draw's possible) they'll be against Spain in the final.

As a football fan the fascinating thing for me now is who are the team that come along and replace Spain as the number one team in the world, and how they do it.

Thankfully the tactics of the likes of Portugal (defend defend defend and hope for penalties) and Holland's attempts to foul them into submission haven't worked, and they were able to see them both off eventually.

History would suggest it is unlikely Spain will retain the European Championships, nevermind the next World Cup, it is just to be hoped that the team who eventually do work out the way to beat them when it matters do it by playing a bit more football than the likes of Portugal and Holland attempted.

But unlike Eurovision it makes a truckload of money to offset that, TBF. And the prospect of repeat tournaments would make it quite appealing, as there wouldn't be the high set-up costs again.

Realy ugly game. I thought Webb should have booked Van Persie for the first challenge and sent off De Jong and Van Bommel in the first half. That might have calmed things down but equally the attitude of the players was such that the match could have completely degenerated. Does the rule that there must be at least 8 players per side apply to the WC? It would have been interesting if they'd had to abandon WC final.

It wasnt really tho just a load of kerfuffle from the dutch who are sore loosers. after that minor blunder the game carried on for 3 or 4 mins and 20 odd passes later they score. if the dutch wanna talk about errors look at the mistakes they made in the match not other peoples they should have been down to 9 by half time