Well, they deserved it.

So we have a Spain v Holland World Cup Final, and this means new champions at around 9.30 Irish time Sunday night. Spain passed Germany by in Durban on Wednesday night-literally. They certainly overdo it at times, but they held possession so well that the Germans didn’t have enough of the ball to fashion the chances for ace poacher Miroslav Klose, who, unless he scores in the 3rd place play-off on Saturday night, will likely fall just short of Ronaldo’s World Cup record of 15 goals.

There was still a lack of cutting edge to Spain’s play against the Germans-witness Pedro’s failure to score late in the 2nd half to kill the game-and 1 goal is cold comfort for me. Germany had their chances, but it took too long for Mesut Ozil to find his groove, and their naivety in defence that gave Carles Puyol the chance to power the Spanish into their first World Cup final was perhaps a sign that this was a tournament too soon for a pretty young team.

Too often in the first half, Spain passed their way into the ‘red zone’, only to find themselves crowded out by the generally well organised Germans, or failing to see a man in front, the ball holder was forced to go lateral, or backwards. But nearly always, possession was retained-seldom did the Germans have the chance to counter-attack as they had done to such devastating effect against both the English and the Argentinians in previous rounds (it’s worth remembering that Thomas Muller-a key component of that success-was suspended on Wednesday night).

In Sunday’s final, Spain will face one of the surprises of the tournament in a Dutch team that can make history by going through qualifying and the tournament itself with a perfect record. With a mixture of class (goals 1 and 3) and a bit of luck (goal 2), Holland disposed of Uruguay in the other semi-final. They haven’t set the world on fire with their football, but they are surprisingly solid and I’m sure most fans would trade the chance to play in their first World Cup final in over 30 years for the type of high scoring and exciting defeats Holland have tended to suffer in recent history. In Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder they have world class players, both of whom are well capable of finding the net. In Mark van Bommel, they have someone who appears to be a licensed thug, who seems to have an almost infinite allowance of kicks and cynical tackles before earning a yellow card.