The Netherlands entered the World Cup having won all eight matches in their UEFA Group 9 qualifying campaign. Spain entered the 2010 World Cup as the reigning UEFA European Football Champions, having won UEFA Euro 2008, and as the shared holders of the international football record of consecutive unbeaten games for a national team, spanning 35 matches from 2007 to 2009 they also won all 10 matches of their qualifying campaign. Thus, the finalists combined for 4211 points, by far the highest for any international football match ever played, beating the previous record of 4161 combined points for the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final between Hungary and West Germany. Spain became just the eighth country to win the World Cup, joining England and France as nations who have won it just once.īefore the match Spain had an Elo rating of 2111 points and the Netherlands a rating of 2100 points. It was the first World Cup final not to feature at least one of Brazil, Italy, Germany or Argentina. Overall, Germany leads with four final losses. The Netherlands played in its third final without a win, surpassing the record it had shared with Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Spain became the 12th different country to play in a World Cup Final, and first new team since France in 1998. Reaching the 2010 final was Spain's best performance in the World Cup, having previously finished fourth in 1950 when the tournament had a round-robin final stage, and the quarter-finals stage in 1934, 1986, 19, when single elimination knock-out stages featured. The Netherlands were runners-up twice before, losing 2–1 to West Germany in 1974, and 3–1 to Argentina in 1978. It was the first time since the 1978 final that neither of the finalists had previously won the World Cup. In all-time head-to-head results, the teams had met nine times previously since 1920, winning four games each and drawing once, in either friendlies, European Championship qualifying games, and once in the 1920 Summer Olympics. Prior to this game, the Netherlands and Spain had never met each other in the main tournament stages of either a World Cup or a European Championship, the two major tournaments for European international teams.
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