There was really no surprise. Uruguay did really the best it could and it was an impressive best, but the Oranje were simply the best team, no question.
I was at work so I could not watch the game but I managed to get back home in the last minutes of the game when the score was 3 to 1. Suspense gone I re-winded instead my Direct TV box to watch some of the early game to accompany my very late lunch and I saw this most spectacular goal by the Dutch from Indonesian origin with the improbable name of Giovanni Van Bronckhorst. Who is the team captain by the way.
I do not know about you, but I have watched that score over a dozen times already an it keeps sending chills down my spine. There is plenty of video on the web already and I picked two. The first one is the close up, where you can admire clearly what instinct is all about when you are a good football player, a left kick, without looking at the gate, at about 35 yards, for a perfect, PERFECT arch to the top corner that the Uruguayan goalie almost reached in an almost über-human effort.
But of course you need an aerial view to really understand the feat of Van Bronckhorst (who by the way is playing his one before last game as he retires after next Sunday, what a way to say goodbye to his country team!). I stumbled on this video from Greek TV. You can still understand, and thus for the kick of it I posted it below, pretty sure that probably none of you ever watched a football game in Greek. With betting advertisement included....
If this score does not give you goose bumps, then you still do not know nothing about football! This is it, at its best, the kind of stuff that only Pelé could do better.
PS: Aarjen, Sneijder and van Bronckhorst. With a still sleeping van Persie and a van der Vaart that could shine one last time. And a defense that makes the dutch gate the most powerful stronghold of the Cup. Is it finally the year of the dutch?