You're letting outcomes dictate your opinions. What if Alonso didn't recover from that challenge and Netherlands won 5-0? Would your opinion on the yellow stay the same?
Webb had already given four yellows by the twenty eighth minute. Alonso got up. Twenty years earlier it might not have even been a yellow card.
In that game at that moment all that was needed was a yellow card. The game went on and didn’t spiral out of control until after the late winner.
Or to put my opinion in perspective my referee geekery is why I know what Webb said later. At the time the announcers weren’t howling for a red. Neither were the players on the pitch. A yellow kept the peace.
A much better critique of my argument would point out that the Dutch were officially the home team and that history also would have given them a better claim to home team as well.
But the Dutch did end with ten so there’s that. Yet Webb managed to disperse the first eight Dutch yellow cards to eight different Dutch starters. That’s good refereeing...keeping the peace.
I suppose this is different when the game is a 1/38 league match instead of a winner takes all situation. Spectators are disenchanted by combat sport matches being won by technicality - and that kind of outcome is part of those rules!
It’s all about entertainment and exciting competition after all, right?
Webb gave the players the game they wanted as good referees do. He avoided an officiating fiasco like the 2006 final.
Fouls are part of the game. They are not cheating.
The game is won by the number of balls in the back of the nets, not by time of possession or completed passes. As they say, "The ball is round. The game is ninety minutes. Everything else is just theory."
The referee allowed the game to get out of control which is almost as bad as over officiating. But at least it’s impossible to make the argument that Spain won because of bad officiating.
I can sympathise somewhat with the perspective of the Dutch team. It was their third final and they knew they were outmatched by Spain’s tiki-taka. Still even considering that I think their actions on the pitch were disgraceful.
I did always wonder what Cruyff’s opinion of that game was and I managed to find an article from the time.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/jul/12/world-cup-f...
edit: Who do you think is going to win Champions League this year?