Tonight The Most Memorable Day of Netherlands & Spain

At the final whistle tomorrow evening one team will be suddenly celebrating its country’s greatest ever football moment – one which will culminate with confetti, a captain and a golden trophy. But the other team will be left clinging to the past: the recent run of getting to this World Cup final and the memories from years gone by.

These will be a start – and a little reminder to the casual fans of what these two nations have brought to the game throughout the years. One recent, one not quite; one glorious, another bittersweet. Their most memorable moments yet, in video compilation.

Oranje ‘74

The Dutch fans know this all too well: the perfect footballing machine, an imperfect result. We’ve gushed on this before, but it never seems to water down. The 1974 Netherlands World Cup team were footballing artists, bringing forth Total Football into total domination, a revolutionary system in which any player could play in any spot on the pitch. They were the toast of the 1974 World Cup, rolling into the final in West Germany against West Germany and mesmerizing the world with their second minute penalty – which they won with Germany yet to have touched the ball. Then, in the words of Johnny Rep: “We wanted to humiliate the Germans. It wasn’t something we’d thought about, but we did it. We started knocking the ball around – and we forgot to score a second.” Germany didn’t, and the Dutch lost. The first in a string of two final losses. Total, except for that one big piece.

Spain ‘08

They were almost an afterthought going into 2008 for many; a brilliant collection of football talent, but one which still suffered from The Curse. From the opening whistle, they were the best team in the tournament and simply never looked back, curse or not. With decades gone since their first European Championships victory, they not only won the tournament, but set about creating a new identity for Spain: winners. Not just a trophy holder, but proper winners – a team which believed in itself and struck fear in its opponents. Finally they had the mental edge to do something outlandish. Something like get to their first ever World Cup final two years later.

The chokers no more. Very few single trophies have set about evolving both the perception and reality of a nation’s football so much, but Euro 2008 did just that.