On his show, Tosh.0, comedian Daniel Tosh laid down a nice rant about soccer.

Nothing can help me care about soccer. Oh, ‘it’s the most popular sport in the world.’ Probably because it’s cheap to play. It costs a ball. Once every four years, America pretends to care about it. And yes, I call it ‘soccer.’ Don’t correct me because I don’t care what they call it in other lands — I speak America.

Sorry world, we already have football and it’s way better. It’s supposed to be played by 300 pound men eight seconds at a time, not five-foot, six-inch fairies lightly jogging for three hours, or however long your game is…buy a scoreboard!

It’s hard for me to get into a sport that I mastered at the age of seven. Excuse me for not being able to get revved up for this corner kick that never works. Hooray! The game ends without a single goal. I want to kill myself when an NBA team doesn’t break a hundred. That’s because you don’t get a free taco.

Maybe there would be more scoring if they weren’t flopping all of the time. And hooligans, instead of killing players that screwed up, murder the ones that fall down crying because their toe got stepped on.

The only good thing about soccer is the movie “Ladybugs.” That’s a classic. Don’t try to re-do it, Hollywood. I love women’s soccer. It’s a beautiful game, and America is actually good at it. Probably because we’re the only country that allows women to wear shorts.

It’s nice to have an activity that terrorist countries can excel at. Enjoy your 15 minutes, Algeria. Then go back to being number one at car bombs. But just know that the only reason you’re beating us is because our best athletes are busy playing real sports. You think LeBron James might make an okay goalie? Oh, and good move, giving us Beckham ten years past his prime. That really panned out.

Funny, funny, funny. But I still say soccer is more entertaining than baseball.

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…which turned out to be his girlfriend.

At first, I thought this was another case of a high-on-adrenalin/alcohol celebrity overstepping his bounds a la Adrien Brody’s planting a kiss on Halle Berry after winning an Oscar or Joe Namath telling Suzy Kolber he just wanted to kiss her on the Jets sideline. But Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas and reporter Sara Carbanero have been dating for a while, so Casillas closed the interview with a kiss.

Watch for a strange moment at 0:25 where they both seem to choke up a little.

In a nail-biting, rough-and-tumble match that went into extra time tied, 0-0, Spain broke through and scored in the 116th minute on Andres Iniesta’s goal.

The match was quite physical, as there were a record-number of yellow cards handed out. The Netherlands’ gameplan was to be aggressive and it eventually led to a red card that gave Spain a one-man advantage and led to Iniesta’s goal.

The funny thing is that the Netherlands could have won 2-0 had Arjen Robben capitalized on a pair of second half one-on-one opportunities at goal. But Spain’s excellent goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, turned him away both times.

In fairness, Spain blew a couple of nice opportunities at well. It was just an ugly match between two very good teams, and Spain did a better job of controlling the ball. Unfortunately, it’s not the type of match that is going to win any soccer converts in the U.S., but at least the World Cup wasn’t decided by penalty kicks.

This is the first time Spain has won the World Cup, while the Netherlands falls to 0-3 in World Cup Finals.

Germany beat Uruguay, 3-2, in an entertaining third place match, and Spain will square off today against the Netherlands in the World Cup Final. Coverage starts at 1:30 PM ET on ABC, though the match will start closer to 2:30 PM.

Jeff Carlisle, ESPN.com: The match will feature two highly technical sides that love to possess the ball. But Spain has turned ownership of the ball into a fine art. Its midfield not only wears out opponents with its movement and slick passing but also does plenty to win the ball back. There are times when Spain’s attack can lack width, and the cure is to get fullbacks Joan Capdevila and Sergio Ramos into the attack. Not only does this twist opposing defenses out of shape, it also allows midfielders such as Andres Iniesta to tuck inside and outnumber opponents in the center of the park… The Netherlands’ attack, while perhaps not as stylish as Spain’s, has been more effective. The Dutch have scored 12 goals, just one behind tournament leader Germany. The key is a varied approach that combines the distribution and goal scoring of Wesley Sneijder, the dribbling ability of Arjen Robben and the tenacity of Dirk Kuyt.

Tunku Varadarajan, The Daily Beast: For the neutral, the game is a feast of conflicting sentiment. It is hard to plump, unequivocally, for one side over the other. Both play deft, thrilling football, and have a recent record that is dauntingly unscarred by defeat. (The Spanish did, however, lose their first game in this cup to Switzerland, bizarrely, a defeat that appears to have stung them back into dominant form). Neither side is so flecked with past triumph that the neutral might say, Let the one who has not won before win this time. We have a truly open game, free from the instinctual biases that would have come to neutral viewers in a game between the Netherlands and Germany, say, or Spain versus Brazil. Spain, many predict, will win, not because their hunger is greater (the Dutch are just as ravenous) but because few sides in the history of the game have mastered the art of ball-possession as well, and as asphyxiatingly, as Vicente el Bosque’s team. Have you ever seen 11 players with a relationship so adhesive to the ball? It’s as if a Spanish version of magic glue were smeared on their cleats, so relentless is their ability to keep hold of the Jabulani, rendering other sides—as was the case with Germany in the semis—mere spectators, mere chasers of shadows.

Brian Straus, FanHouse: A year ago, Sneijder was a Real Madrid castoff. Now, the 26-year-old is 90 minutes away from bringing his long-suffering country its first world title and securing an unprecedented array of honors for himself. He wasn’t big enough to warrant inclusion in Nike”s “Write the Future” ad — overhyped pitchmen like Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Ronaldinho are the ones foisted repeatedly on the public. Instead, Sneijder will have to be content with the opportunity to rewrite soccer history. In May Sneijder helped his new club, Inter Milan, to its first UEFA Champions League crown in 45 years. He scored several critical goals during the competition, set up Diego Milito’s winner in the final and helped engineer the semifinal upset of mighty Barcelona. That result marked the first significant setback for a club that had steamrolled everyone in its path for two years and which employs one-third of the Spain team that Sneijder’s Holland will face Sunday at Soccer City. Sneijder has continued that run of excellence here in South Africa. He has been by far the most important player on an efficient Dutch team that has gone 6-0-0 in the World Cup. He’s scored five goals, including four in the knockout stages, and has built cohesion for a famously fractured side with his intelligent passing, creativity, dangerous free kicks and work rate.

Steven Stark and Harrison Stark, The Cup Running Over: Not to go out on a limb or anything, but Spain should win this game, in a style similar to the German game, except more one-sided. Playing at altitude is much more conducive to the Spanish style; this will also be its fourth game in the heights while only Holland’s second. Holland’s best chance is to score first, which would cause the Spanish to open up, allow more counters, and distribute possession more evenly. But if this doesn’t happen, Spain is going to play this game exactly as it played the last three. If we have to give it a score, we say 2-0 as the Dutch continue to be the best team never to win a Cup. Except this time, they’re not the best team.

Paul Hayward, Guardian: Whichever the new name on the trophy a swell of satisfaction washes up to Soccer City. “This World Cup has shown a non-sexist, non-racist, democratic South Africa,” Jordaan said. “There has been a special unity. It was only 20 years ago with apartheid when black and white couldn’t have sat together, couldn’t have attended the same school or gone to the same beach. Now you see white faces painted in Ghana colours.” The lugubrious Vicente del Bosque, Spain’s coach, who asks the country’s regions to “unite” in the style of his team, will not guarantee a rare smile if his men win. He said: “My joy is on the inside.” His team’s joy is all around.

Spain had the right combination of ball control and creativity to upend the coolly efficient Germans, 1-0, and advance to play the Netherlands in Sunday’s World Cup Final.

The game-winner came in the 73rd minute, when Carles Puyol came from waaaay outside to head the cornerkick into the net. Germany threatened a few times, but Spain controlled the ball for much of the game and kept the Germans under nearly constant pressure.

Sunday’s matchup between Spain and the Netherlands means that we’ll have a new winner this year.

Tied 1-1 at half, the Netherlands scored two goals in the second half and held off a feisty charge from Uruguay to hold on, 3-2, and advance to the World Cup Final.

Holland’s second goal was semi-controversial as one of the Dutch players could have been called offsides when Wesley Sneijder’s shot ricocheted into the goal.

Netherlands has been called the best team never to have won a World Cup, and they’ll have a chance to shake that moniker in Sunday’s final.

Julio Cesar was greeted by fans in Brazil despite being faulted for giving up the deciding goal against the Netherlands. The goal ended Brazil’s run at the World Cup, sending them home in the quarterfinals. The Brazilian crowds’ warmth was surprising, but Cesar couldn’t help but unleash the waterworks.

This just further exemplifies the differences between the United States and international soccer. When our players returned home after losing in the Round of 16, supporters probably swarmed them in dubious jubilation. For the Brazilian players, they can’t help but feel ashamed.

Despite arriving as the tournament favorites, it’s been a string of hard-fought matches for Spain at the 2010 World Cup. With today’s 1-0 win over Paraguay, Spain advances to the World Cup semifinals for the first time in 60 years.

Spain’s lone goal came in 83rd minute, when David Villa pounded a shot from inside the box that ricocheted off both posts before hitting the back of the net.

The most exciting part of the game, however, came off back-to-back penalty kicks and misses. During a corner kick, Spain’s Gerardo Pique took down Paraguay’s Oscar Cardozo, earning Pique a yellow card. Cardozo then failed to score on the penalty kick as Spain goalie Iker Casillas came through for the save. One play later Villa was racing downfield and looked as if he would break the tie. He was soon fouled by Antolin Alcoraz, who notched a yellow card as well. Xabi Alonso then took the penalty kick. And missed.

Unbelievable. Both teams looked evenly matched and looked headed to overtime. Villa, however, finally scored after a bit of fine passing by the Spanish side, sending his team toward a match with Germany in the semifinals.