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Normally three times is a charm, but  for Holland it has become more like a curse: again we failed to win the Holy Grail of Soccer, the World Cup. After ’74, ’78, now 2010 goes into the Dutch history books as the third national soccer trauma. We all knew it was going to be a tough match against Spain – the ruling European Soccer Champions – but nothing in this world could have prepared us for this match.

Until the final, the tournament went very well for Holland: our National team won 14 straight games, counting the qualifying matches and tournament matches. Spain had won 15 out of 16, loosing only from Switzerland in their first game in South Africa. If we would have won the finals we would have been the second country since 1970 (Brazil) to win the tournament undefeated.

Reality was a different animal this Sunday-night in Africa. Within the first few minutes it showed that both teams – but in particular the Dutch- had a hard time getting into the game. No doubt a fair amount of nervousness was involved as well.

Five minutes after the start of the match Dutch goallie, Stekelenburg, had to come into action to prevent an early Spanish goal: it made it painfully clear to 16,6 million Dutch spectators that – if anything –  this was not going to be an easy match.

As the commentators on the official FIFA website wrote after the match, it soon became “a case of the irresistible force versus the immovable object.”

Things started to turn bad real quick when Van Persie got a yellow card in the 15th minute after making a dreadful foul, performing some kind of karate kick that could have easily earned him a red card. Barely one minute later it was Spanish player Carles Puyol who got a yellow card.

After that referee Howard Webb turned the match into bizarre card-fest leaving the millions of spectators world-wide wondering what the heck was going on.

Literally minutes later Ramos (Spain) got a yellow card, followed by De Jong (Holland). The second half was even worse with Van Bronckhorst, Heitinga (all Dutch), Capdevila (Spain), Robben  (Dutch), Heitinga (2nd yellow and thus red), Van der Wiel, Mathijsen (all Dutch) and finally Xavi (Spain). Bringing the total score to a whopping 13 yellow cards and one red card.

It was pure chaos and a final unworthy.

In the midst of the storm the Dutch team was able to ward off wave after wave of the Spanish conquistadors. Dutch goallie Stekelenburg saved us more than once from certain defeat and for over 115 minutes – going into overtime – we stood our ground.

Then the Spanish midfielder Andres Iniesta was able to squeeze through our defence, and scored the winning goal in the 116th minute of the match.

Just minutes away from what – until then – looked to become a much dreaded penalty shootout. But by scoring just once Spain wrote history and became the first European team to win the World Cup on a different continent.

With the clock ticking away It was over for Holland. Adding insult to injury, referee Webb completely missed a situation in which Holland should have gotten a much needed corner: it was typical for a game in which neither the Dutch nor the Spanish were able to show off their real qualities.

We fought as hard as we could, by all means earning our nickname as “The Dutch Lions”, but it wasn’t good enough. An honourable second place was all we were able to squeeze out of this tournament.

But as we all know: in the World Championship of soccer second place doesn’t count.

And so Spain left the Dutch team and 16,6 million supporters behind with a broken dream.

For the third time.