A Home At The End Of The World

A Home At The End Of The World, Netherlands is a team that most soccer followers love to see playing at the world cup. But there is one thing about this team that most citizens of Netherlands will not want to remember which is this that South Africa 2010 is the third final that they will lose and still they are yet to win the FIFA world cup. The first time they got to the final of any FIFA World Cup was in West Germany 1974. They lost to the host which of course was West Germany 1-2. Four years later they reached the finals again only to lose again to the host which was Argentina by the same goal margin. On both occasions they scored first that is in the final of , they were the first to score. They led Germany 1-0 before the Germans rallied round to equalize and score the second goal to win the game and eventually the competition. The situation repeated itself 4 years later but this time around in Argentina 1978. They led the host Argentina 1-0 before the Argentines equalized. The Argentines then took a step further to seal up the game by scoring the second which if I can remember what I read was in the extra-time. The final match that they played against Spain at the just concluded world cup was the third final of the Dutch. The only exception was that it was not against the host. It was against another European nation. Well this removed any excuse from the Dutch that they lost due to the home advantage of the host. But again they lost.

From the last sentence in the previous paragraph one can note that Netherlands has been in the final of the FIFA World Cup 3 times and they lost all the 3. Contrary to what Spain experienced they lost when it mattered most. This is because before their final game against Spain, they were maintaining a 100% winning record. See the score lines of the matches they played below.