2010 FIFA World Cup - Final - Netherlands-Spain 1-0
Arjen Robben, the new Rob Rensenbrink

Monday, 12 July 2010

It seems the Dutch football team is not meant to win World Cup finals. For the third time in their history the Dutch national football team lost at the very end:
1-0 it was this time. It brings up the pain of previous losses, with the new pain to come on top of that. And it brings up a new anti-hero.

In the 1978 final Holland came agonizingly close as well. They stumbled to the final in which Rob Rensenbrink hit the post from close range with only seconds left to play and a 1-1 score. Every Dutch football fan knows that moment. But it's a moment not eagerly discussed in Holland. People want to be silent about it. They don't want to feel the hurt of the moment again. Had Rensenbrink put his flick five centimeters to the right, Holland would have won at least one final and yesterday's trauma wouldn't be half as big. Yet Rensenbrink put it on the post, it bounced back and Holland went on to lose it in extra time.

After the lost Champions League final with Bayern Arjen Robben was hoping that yesterday his big moment would come. And it did come, but twice he was denied by a Spanish goal keeper. And now Holland have a new Rensenbrink as they again lost a final and again had a player tragically missing a big chance. Arjen Robben's chances in the second half should have delivered at least one goal. Especially the second chance could have been decisive as it came late in the second half.

Robben has time to wipe out the memories of these missed chances. He's 26, has at least one European Championship and perhaps even another World Cup coming up in his active career at the highest level, and can erase yesterday's images of doom from the Dutch collective memory. But if he fails he will become a tragic figure in his life after football, just like Rob Rensenbrink, who has that ball on the post carved in his melancholic face. People will not want to invite Robben for interviews and TV shows, for they bring back such tragic moments. When Rensenbrink comes on a TV show - once every four years - it's always in the company of that ball on the post in the 1978 final.

Of course no one will blame Robben now. Spain were the better side, but in the end needed the help of the referee (twice) to score. Chances do get missed, even by players of the caliber of Arjen Robben. In the 2006 World Cup he scored a goal against Ivory Coast from the exact same situation. But these two mattered. And he missed. And we don't want to see them again. Even though we will, in all sports shows in the days and sometimes even weeks to come.

Once every four years they come out from under the dust, and we look one more time. In agony. Poor Robben.

Cards
15' R. van Persie
	17' C. Puyol
22' M. van Bommel
	23' Sergio Ramos
28' N. de Jong
54' G. van Bronckhorst
57' J. Heitinga
	67' Joan Capdevila
84' A. Robben
109' J. Heitinga
111' G. van der Wiel
117' J. Mathijsen
	118' A. Iniesta
	120' Xavi