The boys from Madrid and Barcelona managed to work together, and scoring only nine goals in the entire tournament, have become world champions.

I was pulling for Spain, as in general I prefer finesse over brute strength. I would have been much happier, however, if the winning goal, which came at the most dramatic moment possible, when overtime was almost expired, had not been scored by the most flagrant flop artist on the pitch. He will go down in history for scoring The Goal, rather than for being The Big Whiny Whistle-Baiter. Except in these pages.

An indication of the state of the sport: At one point a Dutch player was breaking away. There was contact. Rather than fall down and draw a whistle, he tried to score. The announcers questioned his judgement. FIFA, we have a problem.