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The Netherlands vs. Spain in the World Cup Final : Who Will Win?

By Andis Kaulins

Although the Daily Mail headlines that Germany coach Low backs 'wonderful' Spain to win the World Cup, we disagree.

At the beginning of the World Cup we predicted as the coming World Cup Champion the team from the Netherlands, which enjoys a form of "home" advantage in South Africa via the history of the Boers.

But there are also "football" reasons for this opinion. We believe that the Dutch team will play the aggressive football necessary to beat the Spaniards.

Low as the German coach followed a very poor strategic plan against the Spanish team, which excels in ball control and defense.

Low should have come out offensively in the game and tried to score an early goal to get the advantage both in score as well as in momentum. He should early have run a game plan to disturb the well-oiled Spanish passing scheme, but did not, letting the German players stand around, doing nothing.

Indeed, instead of aggressively using the offensive juggernaut that the German team can be, Low followed the loser's philosophy of playing it safe and had his team looking like harmless schoolgirls in the first two-thirds of the game, as the team was apparently under command to play it defensively - a stupid decision and a game to forget, full of boredom, bad passing and poor football.

In other words, the German team was playing "not to lose" rather than playing "to WIN". As we have pointed out time and again, CHAMPIONS play only to win and do not worry about losing. See The Key Secrets of Good Coaching & Leadership : Winning can be Taught & Learned : Personnel : Recruiting : Mentoring : Preparedness :

"Studies show that the difference between equally-talented champions and non-champions is the absence of fear in champions - they are not haunted by the fear of losing, but concentrate on the process of winning, doing what it takes to win, regardless of the specter of losing."

Apparently, the German Coach Low is not a champion, otherwise he would have had his team play much differently.

Full post as published by LawPundit on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).