The final of the most eagerly anticipated athletic event of the sporting calendar is drawing closer with each minute. The tension is rising. At 19:30 BST…the end…

One would think it’s Armageddon. No, it’s only the World Cup final. But it may as well be Doomsday.

This year’s final features two formidable European teams, Spain (who were early favourites) and the more-surprising Netherlands who have shown real flair and played entertaining, fast-paced football, pulling out some outrageous goals to qualify through each stage.

Spain have been a consistently strong side with smooth passing being the predominant feature of their playing tactics. Under the management of Vicente Del Bosque, they have taken advantage of their readily-available talent. The Spanish approach to football has often been commended by a myriad of footballing experts for majority of the players in the Spanish league are natives, showing a stress on the importance of rearing home-grown talent. Arguably, this is the downfall of the Premier League, which comparatively depends more on foreign players, leading to a weaker national team.

Liverpool’s Fernando Torres has been a massive disappointment this tournament. El Niño has seemingly lost his scoring prowess during the tournament and I predict that he probably won’t start the game on Sunday. Contrastingly, his strike partner David Villa is stealing the show, storming his way up to the Golden Boot for the entire Cup and looks set to nab it. It will be interesting to see what Del Bosque decides to do with his team – fortunately, he has an array of creative midfielders at his disposal.

Spain enter the game with high expectations, both from themselves and the world. After their complete domination in Euro 2008, they were clear favourites for the World Cup this year and have met their minimum requirements. One must consider that the expectation placed on them could shake them as they remain a particularly young side. However, having set a world record of 15 consecutive victories as a unit, the youthful side prove that it is skill and talent rather than experience which succeeds.

Similarly, the Netherlands consists of a young squad directed by Bert van Marwijk, who has barely altered anything of his predecessor’s (Marco van Basten) team. Netherlands qualified with 100% victory record and are so far the only team in the tournament to not have lost a match, which clearly demonstrates their power and could also prove to be a crucial factor in the match – their technical skill may not match that of Spain, but their creative flair may cause an upset for the Spaniards. They are not a particularly favoured team and very few would have honestly chosen them as contenders for the title, despite their big stars such as Robben, van Persie and Sneijder, all of whom are core to the team’s success, flow and creativity. As seen throughout the tournament, it is their moments of genius which give the Dutch team the edge against their opponents.

Surprisingly, the Dutch enter the match with a better history of success, having reached the final twice but unfortunately losing on both occasions. Spain have already exceeded themselves this year, previously only reaching a best of the quarter-finals. Could this be an omen? Will Holland find themselves third-time lucky?

Personally, I don’t think that the Netherlands will topple the might of the Spaniards. Spain have played like champions (despite a temporary blip against Switzerland in the group stages). The Netherlands aren’t as structured as Spain and often rely purely on creative sparks rather than technique, which could prove costly if one of their key players has a bad game. Spain also possess creativity but also have a foolproof plan of passing to cut teams open and ensure an end result.

To conclude, I predict a Spanish win as they have shown that they can still drill out a result in a deadlock (against Germany in the semi-final, where neither side looked to have a particular dominance over the other, although there were sporadic moments of sheer footballing delight). They have both creativity and technique: a winning formula.

So England are out.

Even if you’ve only had the most cursory glance at the football over the past few weeks you’re sure to have heard about England’s defeat to Germany.

Now, most football fans I know out there have either given up or started supporting their next favourite nation. But the real question is, if you’re not half English and half something else, who is there to support as a full-blooded Englishman?

Well, if you can take the pain Germany is the natural choice, as we share quite a bit of our gene pool with them, since we’re all from the same Anglo-Saxon descent. But I have a feeling anyone watching that savage defeat isn’t quite ready to switch support from Rooney to Klose, though they both get red  cards (how could anyone ever forget Rooney’s temper?) and score goals (well, not yet for Rooney, but there’s always next world cup!)

We certainly can’t support their opposition, the Brazilians, out of anything more than a love of their skill, and ability to move the ball. The same, unfortunately is true for the Argentina team, the Netherlands and Uruguay. Paraguay have yet to prove themselves, but as brits we have no link to them.

That leaves us with Spain and Ghana. Spain are the old enemy, whom we constantly fought in the 16^th and 17^th century, and even later, thanks to Queen Liz, and Sir Francis Drake.

So Ghana is the only team we have left. Ghana might seem like a strange choice because they’re an African team, not even from Europe, and they’re members of La Francophonie, so they can’t have anything to do with us, can they?

Well, yes, actually. From the 16^th and 17^th century England has had colonies in Ghana, and it was even a protectorate of the crown between 1874 and 1957.

Michael Essien

The England camp has been subjected to much controversy lately, yet the critics seem now to have been hushed thanks to Defoe’s goal against Slovenia, giving the team the victory required for them to progress to the knock-out stages. The fear of complete failure is over for both Capello and the team, but how far will England actually progress?

Their next opponents are the much-loved Germans. The deep-rooted rivalry between the two countries promises to deliver plenty more juicy punchlines for the press. Germany are a formidable side – albeit slightly unpredictable in their results. Despite having lost their second match, they came away seemingly unaffected and got the job done against Ghana to qualify. Always a potent side in tournaments, Germany are always contenders to walk away with any competition cup, although they aren’t favourites for this year’s World Cup. There seems to be a certain flair lacking from the team: like a VW Golf, they are reliable but not particularly flamboyant.

This aforementioned lack of creativity may prove key to their undoing. They sometimes lack that spark to save themselves, which England however have demonstrated in the Slovenia match. Unfortunately, whilst they didn’t score again, they had plenty of opportunity and play certainly looked promising. There was a passion evoked from the players after the goal and one would hope that the momentum of such a victory will give them the enthusiasm and drive to continue in a similar fashion. After all, a little inspiration can go a long way, especially against a team such as Germany, who appear to just drill out results.

However, that strong, German reputation of getting results could intimidate the England squad. They may be unwilling to take risks and chances on the assumption that Germany will still conquer them, which is a key danger. We have previously seen Capello’s apprehension for change which ultimately led to the draw with Algeria. Will he stick with Defoe or revert back to Heskey? Hopefully not the latter as we have seen how ineffective it is in comparison with the former. Although you lose the height by picking Defoe, you gain pace and a real desire to dodge in and out of defenders. Germany’s defenders did show weaknesses in their performance against Ghana with blunders which Defoe could certainly exploit. UPDATE : Defoe will be in the side.

England have the added advantage of crucial German injuries to the likes of Schweinsteiger, Ozil and Boateng, which could lift England’s chances and has already rattled German coach Joachim Low. What is certain is that he is not taking England lightly, despite their inconsistency and has stated that he believes that England will be ‘incredibly dangerous’ due to the likes of Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney, although the latter has not found that infamous goal-scoring run which makes him one of the most feared strikers in football.

Sunday’s match promises to be one of real excitement due to the unpredictability of both teams entering the tie. I wouldn’t like to give a definitive verdict on who I believe will win, but England do look like they have a real chance, especially if they live off the momentum and take advantage of Wednesday’s victory. Although we probably wouldn’t like to see it, this match could potentially go into penalties as it seems that there is little to separate the sides, although England may well have the upper hand as they have proven that they have finally settled into the swing of the World Cup.

by Jaz Sansoye

An unpopular view perhaps? But then, I’ve been incensed by England lately, and there have been three real reasons.

Number one is the Rooney incident. If you haven’t already heard, Rooney threw a cursory comment at a media crew, saying “Nice to hear your own fans booing you,” sarcastically. This man is paid £150,000 a week, and yet somehow, he still has the audacity to blame the crowd for their reaction to his appalling performance. 14 top-flight players, all on dazzling salaries, and heralded as some of the greatest players in the world, still failed to play well. Some call it confidence, but then for that to be a factor would assume that these men ought to be affected by confidence. As title-winners and cup winners in the Premier League, they have absolutely no right to be, because they are expected to be skilled and paid to play professionally.

There can be no excuses for such an appalling level of football. Each of these players should be able to perform on their own if necessary, and so no amount of un-preparedness should hinder them greatly. Fabio Capello’s methods have worked elsewhere despite a team not knowing their goalkeeper until just before the match. As much criticism as he may deserve, each of the footballers had to fail as a player to produce that result, not just the manager or the coach.

And then, remember what the beautiful game is all about. In England, we have a history of supporting the underdogs, and also a history as the founders of football. We were innovators, introducing wing play, or Etonian field game tactics in the 1880s, and also, crucially, the men who spread the game and determined the rules at the very start. Whilst we have never been Brazil or Italy, with their fluid style of football, neither have we ever been the stilted goalless side that we have become in recent years.

Who should triumph then is up to the players on the pitch, players who are supposed to be proud to play for their country and yet time after time, when it is necessary, fail to deliver the goods.

This is obviously an extreme point of view, and if you don’t agree that’s fair enough, and tell us so by commenting below.

UPDATE : I suppose, in the end, I’m glad England got through, but only seeing as they’ve upped their game. Good luck to the lads for the game against Germany now!

What an exciting decade it has been, echobloggers! The noughties saw the boom of interactive technology such as itunes and 3G  ‘superphones’. The ipod came into it’s own in the mid noughties, and 2006 saw the first song to reach number 1 on downloads alone (Crazy: Gnarls Barkley), marking a profound change in the way we value music. Websites such as facebook, Myspace and twitter (I don’t count bebo because it sucks) took the us by storm and fully launched us into the world of the recreational stalker. Looking back 10 years ago, we wouldn’t have comprehended this. Our future was to be dominated by Y2K, the millennium dome renewable energy and life on Mars. The question we must ask now is, what is actually going to catch on in the 2010s?

There's an app for that...

3D TV: yes, according to CNN, Three-dimensional images are expected jump out of movie theaters and into living rooms by next year. Sony and Panasonic say they will release home 3-D television systems in 2010; Mitsubishi and JVC are reported to be working on similar products. However, I am suspicous. Channel 4 attempted to gain publicity with their 3D week back in November, which didn’t exactly take off. Surely our TVs are too small for this to make a real difference? Any thoughts readers?

ivasion: 2008/09 saw the iphone’s rise to power, and the long, drawn out deaths of many beloved pieces of technology as the smart phone cannibalised them one by one. First on the chopping block was the short lived sat-nav. Then Tom-tom recently produced a $100 dollar app for iphone that made the mini tour guide obsolete. How sad.

Also on the endangered species list is the flip video recorder, that PC world pronounced dead upon the release of the iphone 3GS. Apple boffins have declared that the iPhone is now cannibalising the ipod, which is a shame because mine is quite little and probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight. So, as the new decade begins we say goodbye to the gadgets we were raised on and turn to a future of super-phones, 3D television and things that can do more than one thing.