And after one of the best matches of the World Cup… we got one of the worst. Spain has yet to play a particularly exciting game, winning a bunch of workmanlike 1-0 games to get to the final. Germany has played effervescently a couple of times – 4-0 over Australia, 4-2 over England, 4-0 over Argentina – but looked impotent and distracted in this one. I think they missed Thomas Müller more than they expected; without him, they consistently failed to string much together in the way of attacks.

Carles Puyol, who is variously described as looking like he’s in Anvil, Iron Maiden, Spinal Tap, or “like Steve Coogan with an awesome mullet” (this may just be me), scored Spain’s only goal with a pretty good header in the 73rd minute. Given that he missed the net with a header in the first half that could not have been from more than fifteen feet away, I’d say he’s shooting .500, at best. Still, Spain had the better of the possession, and deserved the win.

(This despite Pedro putting together the worst move of the World Cup: he had the ball, a step on the lone German defender, and an un-covered Fernando Torres in support. He was away on goal. A shot was a good bet to make it 2-0; a cutback for Torres might have been an even better bet. Pedro chose to cut back directly into the defender, then slip and fall over, failing to even get off a shot.)

So let’s set up the third-place game! It’s Germany, the country of Nazis, against Uruguay, the country that used to hide Nazis! (This is unfair, but this kind of description is what the World Cup’s all about.)

Frankly, I don’t care about the third-place game. Neither does anyone, except for soccer junkies and fans who couldn’t get tickets for the final. No one ever remembers who won the third-place game in any competition in any sport, and the World Cup is no different. (The only exception may be bronze medal games in the Olympics. And even then, nobody really cares.)

Sunday’s final, though, now becomes rather meaty, as commentators say. Neither Spain nor the Netherlands has ever won a World Cup, despite being traditional powers. Neither team lost or drew a single game in the qualifying process. The Netherlands hasn’t lost a game for almost two years, and hasn’t lost a competitive game since the quarterfinals at Euro 2008. Spain lost to Switzerland in the group stage and to the USA in the semifinals at the 2009 Confederations Cup, but otherwise hasn’t lost since November 2006.

These, then, may be the two best teams in the world right now. Spain was many pundits’ pick to be here; many thought Holland would lose to Brazil in the quarterfinals, but otherwise was the third-best team at the tournament.

If it’s like Spain’s other games, it may end up as a boring 1-0 tilt. But if we’re lucky, it’ll be like the Netherlands’ last two games: wild matches with goals aplenty. I’m hoping for the latter.