It wasn't that good, Sepp

The dust has settled on South Africa 2010, the vuvuzelas have thankfully gone silent and the World Cup is now sitting proudly in a gleaming Spanish trophy cabinet, probably still smelling vaguely of sangria, champagne and Iniesta.

In the week since a battered and bruised Spain rightfully lifted the World Cup, Fifa have been falling over each other to say what a magical and magnificent tournament it was.

Sepp Bellend Blatter - a middle name you just couldn't make up - described the event as 'special' while the rest of the organisers have been involved in a back-patting frenzy.

But, in their combined desperation to appear politically correct and bask in the glory of having awarded Africa its first tournament, they are missing one crucial point: in football terms, this was a poor World Cup.

It had its moments, sure, but they were few and far between. For the most part, the football on show was nothing like we have come to expect from the planet's biggest sporting event.

It was, in a word, ordinary.

Those are not sour grapes, as a result of me not having been born in Madrid or Barcelona. In fact, I said Spain would win it well before the whole thing started, so on that note, I am relatively satisfied and certainly not dismayed.

No, my criticism is just an honest reflection on the standard of football we were served up during the 64 matches. Not the fans, not the logistics, not the stadiums - just the football.

The stars that were supposed to light up the World Cup collectively failed to shine. Messi, Kaka, Rooney, Ronaldo and Drogba - to name but a few - might as well have spent their time on the beach working on their close-season tans.

Others, like Mueller and Forlan, did rise to the occasion and make their mark on the international stage, while Iniesta and Sneijder proved living up to expectations is not an impossibility. But scintillating performances were as rare as rocking horse poop.

I don't think there were more than a dozen moments where I got up off my seat in excitement, and most of those involved the clips of scantily clad supporters in the crowd.

How many times in nearly 6,000 minutes of football did ours jaws drop or shivers run down our spines at the beauty and skill unfolding before us? A dozen at most? That's a pretty poor return on investment.

Of course, the tournament's malaise was not helped by the early departures of teams like Italy and France, two countries normally guaranteed to get the pulse racing. Brazil and Argentina also bowed out before we could enjoy them to the full.

And the less said about pathetic England the better.

None of these things are South Africa's fault. As a country, they put in place most of what was needed for a successful tournament. The venues themselves, for example, were magnificent and fitting stadiums for such a football festival.

But the reality is that what we have just finished watching was infinitely forgettable.

Had a tournament of similar footballing standards been held in England, Italy or France for example, then the critics would have been slamming it as over-hyped and under-delivering. A disappointment on a global scale.

Because it was Africa's first crack at it, however, Blatter and the rest of his cronies are covering up its mediocrity and trying to make us believe we have just witnessed something that should long live in the memory. Well it won't.

Wait 20 years and ask anybody what their overriding memory of the 2010 World Cup was and I will bet my last euro that it will be the vuvuzelas.

And that just about sums it up. When the only thing that stands out from 64 football matches is a rather stupid, tuneless and mind-bogglingly irritating trumpet, then I think we know what we have just watched Sepp.

And it certainly wasn't special.

No Dutch courage

You've got to feel a little bit sorry for Howard Webb. The English referee who took charge of the World Cup final rightly believed it would be the finest moment of his career.

He walked out on to the pitch at Soccer City bursting with pride having reached the pinnacle of his profession. But what he didn't know was one of the two teams he was about to officiate had turned up with a game plan that involved causing their opponents grievous bodily harm at every available opportunity.

I am a little too young (don't get to say that very often any more) to remember the great Dutch footballing sides of the late 1970s. Back then, it was all about playing beautiful football when Johann Cruyff led Holland to two successive World Cup finals.

In those days, the Dutch had a philosophy of 'total football'. Last Sunday they were more focused on total annihilation. They received a record nine yellow cards and one red in a game they set out to ruin from the word go.

But, to make matters worse, they then had the cheek to turn round after a game they deservingly lost and blame the referee for costing them the match.

The truth is that Holland could, and probably should, have been down to nine men by half time. The karate kick carried out by De Jong on Alonso, for example, was more than worthy of a red. If not an appearance in court.

But Webb knew that sending off too many players would ruin the game as a spectacle for the billion people watching on television. So, instead of applying the letter of the law he tried to be lenient. It's hardly his fault that the Dutch team turned up for the biggest game of their lives without any intention of playing football. In the end, justice was done when Spain, undoubtedly the best team in South Africa, walked away with the title of best team in the world to add to their European crown.

I can understand Holland's fear at playing against such a beautifully organised and potentially devastating Spanish side. But that's no excuse for not, at least, trying to play some football.

Blaming the referee for their own failings is laughable.

It's like going out for dinner with your wife, getting involved in a huge argument and then trying to blame the waiter.

An honest cheat

As a slight contradiction to my opening piece, there actually was one moment in South Africa which did stand out - the handball by Uruguay's Luis Suarez which denied Ghana a place in the semi-finals.

The striker saved a goal-bound shot in the dying moments of extra time, earning himself a red card in the process. Ghana missed the subsequent penalty and then went on to lose the penalty shoot-out.

What's interesting about this incident is that public opinion has never really turned against Suarez. Unlike other famous handball incidents, this one has almost come to be viewed as acceptable. Whereas Maradona's hand of God goal and Thierry Henry's qualifying handball were both condemned by the world, Suarez's misdemeanour has not received anything like the same amount of bad press. Well, apart from in Ghana probably.

In my opinion, there are two reasons for this.

Firstly is that there aren't many players who wouldn't have done exactly the same as he did in similar circumstances. It is a form of self-sacrifice, a way of giving your team one more, albeit remote, chance of surviving. After all, the injured party still gets the chance to score from the resulting penalty and the odds are in their favour. The second reason Suarez has not suffered the same public lynching as players like Henry have in the past was, as far as I can tell, to do with 'intent to deceive'.

Their crimes were similar, but one of them did what he did knowing full well he would have to suffer the consequences, while the other did it on the basis that he thought he would get away with it.

That's why we have much more sympathy, for example, for someone who is sent off for preventing a goal with a last ditch shirt pull than someone who dives to win a penalty.

I don't like cheating in any shape or form, but if you are going to do something that is wrong, at least be open about it.

There is at least a slither of dignity in being an honest cheat.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com