Seattle had what was best called a functional performance in the 2-1 win over Western conference side Colorado. This continued the run of good results over the last couple of weeks and is threatening to turn into an actual run up the table. Seven points from the last 9 on offer, and a semi-final place in the Open cup and there are reasons for this emerging confidence from what’s been a poor year up to now.

Seattle played a solid game on Sunday against Colorado. The defence was faced with a very physical attack led by Conner Casey, Pat Iaani and Jeff Parke responded in kind and with the exception of the goal did a good job at the back.

The Colorado was well taken; Casey sent Parke the wrong way and finished with a shot that gave Keller no chance. During the second half Seattle soaked up a lot of pressure and a couple of great saves from Keller preserved the win for Seattle. This was another step in the correct direction, Seattle has been in this position before, defending a late lead, and given the game away in the last few minutes of the game.

It’s difficult to say Seattle is a better team with out Ljungberg in the line up, especially on the form he showed last season, but they seem somehow to be a more complete team.

There are a few positive signs and the team seems to be heading into the correct direction.

Wednesday night and it’s time for the first CONCACAF Champions League game. The sounders have been pushing the Wednesday night game with the slogan “There are times for friendlies, this is not one of them”. Most football fans know of the European Champions League, the best clubs in Europe battle it out for glory (a considerable pot of money) and a place in the World Club Championship.

This is north and Central America’s version, the winner goes to the World Club Championship for a go at the ultimate club title.

Seattle plays it’s first leg against Metapan, the El Salvadorian champions, the winner of this tie goes into the group stage for another 6 games against Central American sides.

It will be a chance to have a look at a different style of football, in places like El Salvador the passion for the game runs deep, but the money to develop and compete is scarce.

Metapan are no easy win, especially as Seattle has to travel to El Salvador next week for the second leg of the tie. They have won the local league four times in the last 7 years, have a number of players with international experience in the squad and have played on this stage before.

Last year they made it to the group stages of the champion’s league and posted a win over Houston during the competition. I don’t think this is a team the Sounders can take lightly. The big player is midfielder Paolo Suarez. The name may be familiar as he’s the elder brother of Luis Suarez, who stopped a certain goal with his hand during the Uruguay – Ghana game at the World Cup Finals.

Ultimately I think Seattle should be able to use their speed, fitness (Metapan are about to start their season) and tactical discipline to move into the knock out stages where some big games await. This is when the real fun should begin.

Very interesting German GP today. Not the racing, it was rather processional as is typical with the high downforce tracks.

Obviously there is one big talking point, Ferrari instituting team orders despite the idea being “banned” by the FIA. May as well make sunrise illegal, the team employs the drivers and everyone is fully aware of their place in the pecking order.

Alonso had caught and been pushing Massa hard for several laps. He told his race engineer on lap 22 “This is ridiculous.”

A couple of minute’s later Massa was told, “Fernando is faster than you, did you understand that message?” As coded messages go it’s not exactly subtle.

On Lap 49, Massa lifted on the exit of the hairpin and Alonso easily shot past the Brazilian. Massa was told “OK good lad. Just stick with him now.” after he had been passed. Massa could have handled being over taken in a more subtle way, he left no doubt that he does not agree with the decision. We will see how the politics at Ferrari deal with that over the next few weeks.

Massa was a good employee and did what he was told, he confirmed the radio conversation but later also said he had been struggling after switching to harder tires. There is little question that Alonso was quicker, but with there being so few overtaking opportunities at Hockenheim that’s irrelevant if he could not get past. As ever the onus is in the passing driver to make the move, not to be let through.

Interestingly the FIA and stewards moved with lightning speed (for the FIA) and immediately after the race Ferrari was given a $100,000 fine (not even a slap on the wrist) and referred to the World Motor Sport Council for bringing the sport into disrepute. The WMSC is the top body in the FIA and could give further sanctions against Ferrari. At this time the result from Germany stands. We will see how seriously the WMSC takes it when they meet in September.

Felipe Massa gets the last word on this for now “For sure you always want to win. We don’t have team orders. If you can’t do the race you want, you have to think about the team. I am professional, and today I showed how professional I am.”

Some thoughts on the season so far, it’s been as good as I’d hoped. The racing has generally been close; the top teams are very close. Clearly Red Bull are the team to beat on Friday and Saturday, but they have been unable to translate the qualifying performance to as many wins on Sunday afternoon as they maybe should have. Both the team and drivers seem to be prone to making mistakes during the race.

The crash between Vettel and Weber in Turkey is the prime example, there is no excuse for what happened and the more I look at it the more Vettel looks at fault. No question Sebastian Vettel is incredibly quick and is the heir to Michael Schumacher. He seems less obsessed with the details and has very clearly shown that he has what it takes to win the championship, just needs to stop making the silly mistakes and make it count when he has the front row of the grid.

The two McLarens never seemed to have the outright pace of Ferrari and Red Bull, but they came through with probably the best positions they could hope for.

Lewis Hamilton is on a rich run of form right now; the distractions over his family and management seem to have been dealt with and he is unquestionably the fastest driver out there if the car is up to it. But that’s the problem McLaren seem to be struggling compared to Red Bull and Ferrari on the higher downforce circuits. It’s going to be interesting to see what the team does about that.

He seems to have taken back the initiative from Jenson Button over the last 3 or 4 races. Button has done very well, I think most people thought he was going to get eaten for lunch by Hamilton, but that’s not been the case and he deserves a lot of credit for that strength and fortitude.

The team has been clear that the pair started off as equals but Lewis is starting to shine more now and as much as the pair insists that they are teammates, they are also massive rivals too. If Button has a ruthless side he needs to start showing it a little more if he wants to start worrying Hamilton for the championship.

There is a lot of racing left to go, but if Hamilton keeps picking up points the way he has been it’s going to be tough for anyone to catch him. I think it’s down to Vettel making full use of the equipment advantage, or Button really going at him and taking a few risks.

I’ve lived through something over 15,000 days and the indicators are there that I’m growing up – ear hair, friends who don’t wear sneakers all the time, mortgage, fewer t-shirts with rude messages on them and perhaps most telling of all the thought that perhaps I should get a practical car.

The last one was a particular surprise to me, especially as one of the reasons I tried to justify it with reasoning that only added to the already high WTF value. I thought it would be great, “I’ll be able to haul stuff back from the DIY store…” This was particularly shocking, Dad hauls stuff home from the DIY store. OK not recently what with the whole in hospital thing, and certainly not in his tiny Hyundai, but he used too and he’s old…

Old people do that and I’m not… The pause was followed by an out loud “oh fuck” as the denial bubble burst, I might just be… Middle age…

So now I‘m through the denial, what sort of “practical” car to get. It will be sharing space with the Miata once it’s repaired after being hit and vandalized. And lets be clear, that’s not the manliest car around so it needs to provide a little more “Arggg! me man” credibility than its stable mate.

I have these bizarre pretensions of being an outdoorsy manly man, there is a certain amount of evidence that it’s just not me now. Exhibit A is the fact that I’m not a huge fan of camping. I went through that phase in my teens and early 20’s, when I did all sorts of adventurous things like hiking portions of the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee after watching Deliverance and staying under nylon in the jungles of Malaysia.

OK, so back to the car – it’s got to have four wheel drive and proper off road credentials, so thankfully we’ve eliminated mini-vans, most SUV’s and boring regular cars. Although I do think an ex-police Crown Vic would be a fun car to own, people would let you out into traffic more often for a start.

I can’t afford a newish Range Rover, actually not true as I was once again shocked by how much the bank was willing to trust me with when I applied for a loan. So I could afford a new Range Rover but the idea of a $1000 car payment every month is so ridiculous to be inconceivable to me.

A Jeep wrangler would be OK, I’ve known people who own them, not really what you’d call super practical but with the back seats removed there is a little room back there. I’m not sure I qualify for one as I don’t own a dog, judging by those I know it seems to be a requirement, for some reason it’s almost always a golden Lab.

My boss owns a Grand Cherokee and hates it. The car has spent more time being fixed than it has on the road in the last year. That’s out, though he did snigger when he found out what I ended up buying.

When I start thinking about proper 4WD off-roaders, it turns out the list is actually rather limited. Nissan X-terra is sort of there, but a little basic inside. Some models of the Toyota FJ have off-road pretensions, but the interior looks like it came out of the Fisher Price toys for 3-5 year old catalogue.

VW has the Toureg, the only ones available around at a price I’m interested in paying are clearly thrashed or have frighteningly high mileage (how do you put 175000 miles on a 4 year old car and not be a sales rep?). Much the same story for Porsche Cayenne, there are a few around the top end of what I want to spend on a second car. But the same stuff that applied to the Touregs (and they are essentially the same car) but more so, with the added bonus of buttock clenching insurance rates.

So with a certain inevitability we are back to the Land Rover stable, in the mid 90’s I shared a student house with Mark, a former Land Rover mechanic from Jersey (the island, not state) and he swore everything LR made other than the Range Rover was junk.

I totally disagree, I’ve run a mid 90’s range Rover, most of the time was junk. It was not a well maintained version when it arrived and spent its days marking its territory with a succession of oil leaks, head gasket failures and suspension problems. However, on those rare moments it was working it was awesome and maybe the best car I’ve ever driven.

I do recall Mark having a certain begrudging admiration for the second generation Discoveries. The off-road credentials are very certainly there (its got a proper transfer case), the interior is rather nice and it’s practical. Reliability was not perfect, especially on the early ones, so finding the right car is important.

The DNA of the car can be traced back to the original Range Rover (known as the “classic” in RR circles) and that must have been doing something right as it was in production for 25 years. Incidentally, the depreciation on most Land Rover cars is absolutely astounding, but in this case it works in my favour if I can find the right one.

So a late Discovery, with full dealer service history, all recalls fixed (and there were a few), clean car fax report and lowish miles. Should not be too hard.

Famous last words…

Actually the right car turned up at a local dealer after a few weeks, only problem was the dealer wanted stupid money for it. I spoke to one of the salesmen who said they might find a little wiggle room on the price. I wanted them to find a shit load of wiggle room. The test drive showed everything was in order, it looked good and except for the price this was exactly what I was looking for. I told the dealer what I thought it was worth, he tried to bargain to see what they could do to get me in that car on that day.

I made it clear what my offer was and told them to call if they can meet it.

There are all sorts of stats about what happens once a customer walks out of the dealership, essentially the chances of them coming back is remote at best. We had a couple of phone conversations over the following days, I said I’d come in at the end of the month and see if they were more willing to deal then.

Unlike previous dealer experiences, my bargaining with Bellevue Land Rover and Jaguar was nothing but professional. They knew I was serious, had the loan lined up and was not in a rush. Eventually they met my price. They sold a used car and I had what I was looking for. Everyone was happy.

So now I’m the proud owner of a 03 Land Rover Discovery. In typical Land Rover style it’s quirky, things are slightly different to keep the LR traditions alive. I’ve already had my first spate of warning lights; (ABS, Traction Control and Hill Descent Control) coming on and just as quickly going away.

As Jeremy Clarkson believes owning an Alfa Romeo is a requirement to call yourself a petrolhead, I think owning a Land Rover should be on that particular checklist too.

Today was the All British Field Meet at Bellevue Community College. For those not in the know this is a chance for all the owners of various marques of British cars to come together and bitch about reliability and discuss the minutia of restoring and keeping British cars running (as I’ve said before, some of the worst cars ever built came out of British factories from the late 60’s through to the early 80’s).

It’s an anoraks paradise. The place was wall to wall with Astons, MGs, Hilmans, Morgans, Rolls Royces, Rovers, Austins, Minis, TVRs, Jags and even a lone Sterling (a British car model never actually sold in Britain). There were over 200 cars there in total.

There seemed to be two types of owner, those that appreciated and drove their cars, and those who had slightly lost the plot, were deep in discussions about matching VIN numbers and trailered their cars everywhere.

I should add now the Land Rover owners were all in the first category, every one of the 15 or so Land Rovers were driven, some daily.

The second type of owner does scare me slightly. I’m guessing it’s probably a good outlet for the OCD of the world, continually fussing over the lightest detail in order to make their car perfect, to make it the same as the day it rolled out the factory. Truthfully, I don’t think the factory fully knew what they were building sometimes, and the more “exclusive” the marque, the less likely they were to leave the factory exactly per the spec sheet.

The Land Rovers were well represented by the Pacific Coast Land Rover Group. There were Series II, Series III (I learned to drive in a Series III, a long time ago) and Defenders along with various models of Discoveries and Range Rovers in all sorts of states of modification. A couple were set up for long overland adventures; impressively one had been to Argentina and back.

I’m happy with my purchase, but it’s time to get it dirty and the Pacific Coast Land Rover group seem more than happy to help with that.

Today I learned that the Chopper is 40 years old, for the initiated The Chopper is a wedge shaped bike made by Raleigh in the UK. With odd sized tires (16 inch front, 20 inch back), a long banana saddle and three gears shifted with a stick shift it was unique and 10 year old Dave, like many boys growing up in the UK, had one.

OK, it was not the safest bike around. Handling was a little on the “sharp” side, turn too tight and down you went. Lean too far back and the front wheel came up, which resulted in a very impressive wheelie. Or for the less coordinated like me, more road rash.

It was really heavy, heavy in a way that kids brought up in a world of carbon fibre race bikes and fat aluminium tubed mountain bikes would not understand. This weight made it the perfect kids bike. In the years I owned one I was not exactly what you’d call gentle with it. It got well bashed, ridden into kerbs; over tree roots, down hills and all that ever broke was a brake cable. It broke at a rather inopportune moment and let to a close encounter with a tree. Not shockingly I came off rather worse for the encounter, but the bike was fine.

And this was in the days before the safety nazis insisted we all wear helmets. Yet somehow (occasionally to my fathers surprise) we managed to survive childhood.

There is a version still for sale new, but the whole point of the bike was destroyed by the health and safety people getting involved, they made it all boring, safe and sane.

The bike has some interesting roots. Tom Karen designed it; he spent most of his life designing cars, including the rather beautiful Scimitar GTE. It was not a perfect bike, but it looked good and when you are 11 that is just starting to become important.

It was clearly a kid’s bike, it was not a scaled down version of something an adult would ride. Although my dad did borrow mine for a week when I was 12 when his car was being repaired. He rode it 7 or 8 miles to work each day and I’d be impatiently waiting for him to get home so I could join my friends riding around Whitmore common. I recall he looked vaguely ridiculous on it; after all it was a kids bike.

There are a few for sale on EBay in the UK; they seem to be going for somewhere around $250 for one in decent condition, these are the proper ones, not the modern pretend Choppers. It perfectly represented the kid culture of the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was not safe, it was rather gaudy and rather against the rules. It was a perfect piece of design for the moment that was soon dated, but not because of looks, because the world moved on and that makes it very cool.

This week brings up the first anniversary of davekean.com blog in its current iteration. When I started this I did not really have an aim or goal for the sit, I was not even sure if I had enough to say, but that’s not been an issue. Somehow here we are a year and something over 80,000 words later, and as ever the constant churn that is life continues to make things interesting.

Lots have happened, both good and bad. Some of that has been documented here, and some will be in the future. It’s been a year with a lot of change and shifting focus, I’m not sure I’m coping that well with it at times, but I’m doing my best.

I’ve found writing to be therapeutic in some way, while it is unquestionably somewhat self-indulgent it has also been an interesting way to share. It is a very deliberate and personal form of communication, but as with the rest of the blogoshere it comes with some level of rather satisfying anonymity.

When I started this I did not understand how interactive and dynamic this medium was, that’s been a pleasant surprise that I try to understand and adapt to every day.

Perhaps my biggest surprise (and a very pleasant one) has been the number of hits my pages receive. Over the last couple of months I’ve been averaging something like 1500-1800 uniques a week and getting towards a couple of hundred RSS subscribers. Thanks for reading, for your feedback, emails and comments, they make a difference.

One thing I’ve discovered is there is plenty of inspiration out there, personal, professional, internal and external. From my interesting and mostly functional family and friends, to the debacle of the England football team (I admit “rotting corpse” may have been a little strong the describe the, but not by much) and what is turning out to be one of the best F1 seasons in a long time.

I really don’t think what I’ve had to say is that important or interesting. But thank you for reading and hopefully finding some turds worth the effort of polishing (it’s possible, they did it on Mythbusters) on here somewhere.

It’s been a packed year with lots going on. As I sit here today, it seems like then next year will be no different. It’s been interesting to take stock of what has happened, what’s is happening and appreciate the life I have and the possibilities that await me.

Thank you

Dave

dave @ davekean.com

I’m leaving the rotting corpse of the England team where it lay and turning my attention to the US team and what happened there.

The World Cup is over and the US football scene is falling back to its usual level of coverage that’s designed for the anoraks and not the casual “is it a World Cup year?” fan.

The US were somewhat outplayed in the final 16 by a rather good Ghana team that a lot of people seemed to be looking past towards a quarterfinal game with Uruguay.

The team was unconvincing in the group stage (as were England), take away the routine ball that Rob Green fumbled in the opening game and the group would have looked very different. If England had won that game 1-0 the US would have been drawing lots against Slovenia for the right to advance to the second stage rather than winning the group.

Bob Bradley the US manager has a lot of detractors. He has been in charge for three-and-a-half years, coached the team in 66 games and called up a total of 92 different players during that time. He has made some inexplicable personnel decisions.

• Sticking with Jose Altidore no matter how bad he’s playing.
• Freddy Adu never even made Bradley’s preliminary 30-man squad for South Africa. Adu is young, but could be the best outfield player to come out of the US youth system.
• Picking Ricardo Clark, a player who’s does not have the speed or touch to play at international level. He was chosen to start the first Group Stage game against England and made the mistake that led to England’s goal. Inexplicably he was chosen again for the Ghana game and made the error there that led to Ghana’s first goal.
• Starting clearly out of form RSL player Robbie Findley over Herculez Gomez and the red hot Edson Buddle.

To be fair Bradley has had some success. Most notably winning the Gold Cup in 2007, beating Spain and reaching the final of the Confederations Cup last year. There were a couple of rough patches, but in the end he ensured a fairly straightforward qualification for the World Cup, and finished atop Group C at the tournament.

I’ve said before that qualification for the World Cup should be all-but automatic for this team. Three teams are guaranteed to come out of CONCACAF; they should be Mexico, the US and whoever else is hot (Honduras this cycle) so I don’t see that as much of an achievement.

The Win over Spain and leading Brazil 2-0 at half time at the Confederations cup was impressive, but the success here seems to have been put to one side and not built on.

Bradley inherited a very disciplined side from Bruce Arena, not the most creative team in the world, but very functional and played to their strengths. Unusually for an international side the US team play a lot of games together, far more than the European and South American sides. However during those games he picked 92 different players, no chance at consistency or taking advantage of all those games to build that well drilled club mentality that has been so obvious over the last month in sides like Spain, Germany and Holland.

Under Bradley that discipline has been lost and the team has no real identity or style. They have been questionable at the back and gave up a lot of goals against mediocre opposition during the qualifying campaign. His best player is unquestionably Donovan, who gets misused in a far more defensive role that takes away a lot of his influence on the game that makes him so important to LA and was seen during his loan spell with Everton.

We are at the start of another four year World Cup cycle, a coach needs two years to understand the personnel and get them playing his way, and another two years to actually qualify. The question that the USSF needs to ask, is Bob Bradley the right person to lead this team through this cycle?

If not then who. Jurgen Klinsmann’s name keeps coming up. For the last 6 years he’s been a large part of building the Lowe’s young and talented German squad.  A team that plays very tidy, attractive, attacking football, with loads of confidence.

Klinsmann lives in LA and has an understanding of US football. He was the federation’s first choice but said no when the USSF would not give him the level of control he wanted over the entire national team set up. He has proven with his role with the German squad that he knows how to build a team at this level and probably has a better understanding than anyone else about what needs to be done to raise the bar for the US Team between now and Brazil 2014.

I fear the USSF would rather stay with what they know and either stay with Bradley or one of the other insider coaches they know. Going with someone like Klinsmann and giving up control to him would be a philosophical change fore the USSF, but it may be what they need to make it to the next level and possibly repeat the results of 2002.

Something fun, Rubens Barrichello takes the reasonably priced car around the Top Gear test track.

If you are not familiar with the concept, the TV show puts various drivers into a standard car, gives them a little tuition and sets them out to make a fast lap on the track laid out at Dunsfold in Surrey.

There is also a separate list with a number of Formula-1 drivers, who happen to be some of the most competitive people around. Enjoy as Rubens adds his name to the list.

Big day for live sport yesterday. It started with the first real, all day long Alpine stage on the Tour De France. There is something just awe inspiring about cyclists doing 20KPH along steep alpine roads, and I mean inspiring in a “WTF, are you serious” kinda way.

The end of the live coverage of Le Tour dovetailed nicely into the start of the live coverage of the British GP. A very interesting race that Mark Weber led from lights to flag, the first corner saw the two Red Bull cars going at each and giving no quarter. Vettel came off the worst, but clearly not all is happy between the two Red Bull drivers (and both are under contract for next year at the same team).

Weber won, Ferrari had a disaster, Vettel drove from the back of the field to finish 7th and Rosberg beat Schumacher once again. Hamilton finished second and is still the championship leader, 12 points ahead of his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, had a great drive to finish fourth after driving through the field after qualifying a disappointing 14th.

As the champagne spraying slowed down the pre-game for the World Cup Final was just starting up. A lot has been written elsewhere about this game, the best team won. Not sure if Holland’s coach, Bert van Marwijk, took inspiration from the way Inter Milan beat Barcelona in the Champions League final, but the Dutch went out to throw Spain off their game and get something. They came close, going forward the Holland looked good at times. Ultimately Spain was too good, the goal superbly taken, a tough chance made to look easy.

One story that’s got more press than it probably should have done was Paul the physic octopus. He continued his perfect record at picking the results of World Cup games involving Germany, and after Germany was eliminated, the final.

After Paul predicted an Argentine loss in the quarterfinals, Paul got death threats and recipes for braised octopus sent to him. German fans repeated this over reaction after he called the semi-final, correctly once again.

At this point I went into work for a couple of hours to finish a couple of things for meetings today. Nothing interesting, but to round off the day of sport was Seattle hosting Dallas at Quest Field. Seattle needs to the points, is yet to beat a team in their conference (home or away) this year. Dallas is one of the teams that are fighting for a play off place and need the points as much as Seattle does.

There were a number of changes, both forced and unforced. Ljungberg was out with an ankle problem (hopefully real, not a “transfer window is almost here” ankle problem), Noonan, Marshall and Vagenas were dropped. Seamon, Sturgis, replaced them and Jaqua got his first start of the year after his return from injury.

These changes along with the inclusion of Montano provided a very different look, and they played with a lot of energy and for the first half played some of the best football I’ve seen all year from Seattle. They played far better as a team that last weeks big loss to LA (a very good team by the way).

Seattle went in at half time 1-0 up, good possession and some nice passing meant the lead was well deserved. Riley connected with Seamon, who swung in a cross into the box for Montero to head past Hartman. It was a well-worked and finished goal. Seattle looked comfortable coming in at half time.

Things changed shortly after the restart when Montaro was sent off, there was a hard tackle by Dallas’ Shea, and the two players had a big coming together. The ref said Montaro threw an elbow and he was sent off for retaliation. I was in the bathroom and caught the replay on the TV’s and did not see a sending off offence on the replay.

The call seemed very harsh, especially after watching the Dutch play earlier. Had there been a MLS referee in charge of the World Cup final there would have been 7 or 8 players left on the pitch.

Seattle played down a player for close to 35 minutes, the team defended well, defended in depth and worked very had to keep the lead. It took a very well taken goal in the 87th minute to equalize.

Another result they probably should have had, the defending was good enough that I had some confidence they were going to hold onto the lead despite being down a man. Keller made a couple of good saves and it took a very good header to beat him.

There are a lot of positives to take from the game, the improvement over the LA game was clear. The younger players did themselves no harm and hopefully gave Sigi something to think about for the game at DC United on Thursday.

The final is tomorrow morning Pacific time, neither Spain or Holland have ever won the tournament. Holland has been close as defeated finalists twice under Cruyff. A lot of new ground has been broken over the last four weeks, most notably the success of the first tournament in Africa, it seems fitting that it will end with a new name will be added to the cup.

Two weeks ago I was questioning the football played by the Europeans and what was wrong when compared to the South American sides. To be clear, Italy, France and England brought little to the party. Spain is the reigning European champions, I was wrong to lump them in with the underperforming and ill disciplined.

Holland are unbeaten in South Africa, taking into account warm up and qualifying it’s now 25 games since they lost, there was plenty of evidence that they were going to be tough to beat.

Over all we have no cause for complaint, the 2010 World Cup in Africa has been eventful. Coming out of the group stages Argentina and Brazil both played good football. Brazil especially had a little flair and performed in the way you expect Brazil to perform in the World Cup – impressively. Holland made short work of Brazil in the quarterfinal, 1:0 down at half time; the Dutch dominated the second half in a very controlled, but physically forceful way.

If the Dutch play the same way against Spain, they should win. This is not total football and this team will not be mistaken for the team of the 70’s but they can still play. They know how to come from behind and knowing they have defeated Brazil and Germany to get here can only add the confidence coming into the game,

Unlike Holland, Spain have lost in this tournament 1-0 to Switzerland in their opening game, it was he only game that the opposition scored first and Spain were never able to get back into it.

Spain have had a little of a struggle to finish their chances, only 7 goals so far in the tournament. All the wins during the knock out stage have been 1-0. The poor form of Fernando Torres has not made Spain’s scoring problem easier. Having said that Spain have only conceded two goals, and are very good at hanging onto slim leads, the defensive discipline has been good, especially during the semi-final against Germany when they shut down the German midfield very effectively.

Holland has scored freely, 12 goals in 6 games (against 5 conceded). However it does not matter how disciplined you are when you have layers like van Bronckhorst who opened the scoring against Uruguay with the goal of the tournament.

It has the makings of a fitting final for what has been a very good tournament. In the knock out stages Spain has not been seriously troubled, you get the feeling they are playing within themselves, that there is another level to their play that’s not been required yet. If Holland can play to their best, if Robbins, van Bronckhorst, van Persie and co play to their ability Spain may have to raise their level to win this thing. A World Cup final deserves that.

My feeling, Spain at their best should be too much for Holland, but Spain have not been at their best yet, but it’s also not been required. It’s the potential to be a very fitting final to a good tournament.

Todays WTF moment is coursesy of Sears in Alderwood Mall.

It’s July 8^th (and only 169 days until the big day) and Sears has Christmas decorations on the shelf, WTF…

Not reduced, not on sale, but at full price…