Spain became the eighth national team to win the World Cup, beating Holland 1-0 in what was, in my opinion, a very poor final.

Both teams came into the game playing some great football, but much of it was missing tonight, understandably due to nerves on both sides. Andres Iniesta’s goal, four minutes from the end of second half extra time, gave them victory. Holland had Johnny Heitinga sent off for a second bookable offence, and there were a total of thirteen yellow cards in total handed out by referee Howard Webb to both teams. Many who thought this final was going to be a classic were left disappointed. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this.

Oh, well, it’s over… after sixty four games, it’s goodbye South Africa, and looking forward to Brazil in four years’ time. The withdrawal symptoms seem to be kicking in already.

Just when many of us thought that the World Cup couldn’t get any better, it did. Excitement, goals, shocks and a dramatic penalty shoot-out has ignited the tournament after a slow start.

South America’s big two went out with a whimper. Brazil, one of the pre-tournament favourites, were beaten 1-2 by Holland. Argentina were thrashed 4-0 by England’s conquerors, Germany. Uruguay are now the Americas’ last hope after beating Japan 4-2 on penalties after both sides levelled 1-1 after extra time. European champions Spain beat Paraguay 1-0, but it wasn’t the one-sided match many people had predicted.

Ten goals were scored over the weekend’s quarter finals. Let’s keep that going. It’s very open from now heading towards the semi-finals this week… and one cannot predict an outright winning team from either of them.

Meanwhile, our own Football Association has done the right thing and decided to keep faith with keeping Fabio Capello as manager, despite England’s dismal showing in South Africa. There will be (media) pressure on him to get rid of some of his senior players and start bring in new and younger players, but at least in the short term, he cannot do that, because there has been very few decent English players coming through the ranks at clubs, particularly of those in the Premier League, and the ones who have been given that chance have simply failed to make the grade. My fear is that within ten years, if this trend continues, the national team will continue to suffer, and in the worst-case scenario, fail to qualify for major tournaments.

The Nigerians have a much simpler way of dealing with their early World Cup exit… withdraw the national team from playing competitively for two years.

The surprise decision was made by the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan. Their existing football federation was disbanded, and a new board will be put in place in order to shake-up the organisation of the game.

We in England can only admire the resolute action carried out by Nigeria. Sadly, there are too many vested interests which would have prevented such a similar situation happening here.

Every time England falls badly at any major competition, there’s always an inquest over what has gone wrong. Most people know what needs to be done, but nothing ever happens. When the new football season starts in August, all this will be conveniently forgotten…

Oh, dear, here we go again.

Our football team were thrashed. Dumped on. Pistol whipped. Humiliated. Beaten into submission.

Oh, well… at least our cricket players did us proud.

On Sunday afternoon, England will face Germany for a place in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. A great match in prospect between arguably one the greatest rivalries in world football.

Unfortunately, whenever these teams are paired up, the banter is routinely reduced to bigoted chanting. In England, the match is constantly used as an excuse to re-run World War II.

Tabloid newspapers repeatedly use offensive terms like Hun and Kraut, with references to Adolf Hitler. The national team is also often the target of  unfunny jokes. Anti-German sentiment continues to be rife, despite the fact that the war ended over sixty years ago.

I bet any German who has the misfortune of living in Britain is constantly reminded of the rubbish that’s written in the papers and broadcast on our TV screens…which can turn into a great motivation for their team to  beat England where it currently matters… on the pitch.

In football at least, there is more that unites the both sets of supporters than divides us. Can we just do the honourable thing and back our teams during the game, and then remain friendly, whatever the result?