They will line up against Holland at Soccer City, Johannesburg, on Sunday after beating Germany 1-0 in a disappointing semi-final.

Yet Spain deserve it. No question about that. From the first round aberration when they lost against Switzerland they have grown into this tournament.

They have played neat and tidy football and in David Villa they have the tournament's star performer. And in Xavi and Andres Iniesta they have its most creative forces.

Yet they owe their final place to a towering header from centre-back Carles Puyol from a corner. All that delicious talent and the crucial contribution was a bread-and-butter set-piece.

They owe it also to a German team whose youth froze when the country needed them most. You do not win anything with kids, someone once said. And that was how it looked as the muse which had led many observers to talk of Germany as the team of the future simply deserted them.

It was not the great semi-final which this tournament needed. Far from it. They seldom are of course. The prize is so close, one slip can prove so costly.

Put it this way, if it had not been for the vuvuzelas, which forever will be the buzz-saw soundtrack of this World Cup, at times there would have been a deathly silence around the stadium. Thrills at a premium.

Pity, that, because this was the game neutrals wanted both sides to win. It had the look of a perfect final.

Holland coach Bert van Marwijk, whose team reached Sunday's final with a 3-2 win over Uruguay, had already agreed. Well, almost. He had conceded that Spain played the best football in the world and Germany had played the best at this tournament.

But you have to have the ball to play with it and there were long periods in this match where Germany simply could not wrest it from their opponents.

That is how Spain play. They pass. All day and all night if they have to, Iniesta and Xavi and Xabi Alonso probing and teasing and searching for the right opening.

Spain might have scored twice in the first half, once when David Villa brought a point-blank save from Manuel Neuer and then when Puyol directed a flying header over the crossbar.

For Germany's part they might have had a penalty when Mesut Ozil appeared to be brought down by Puyol but Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai waved away the appeals.

It was intriguing, a match for football's aficionados. Such games are often likened to chess matches and for good reason.

They are all about patience, as much for the spectator as the players. Not easy, that, for a young side such as Germany, who looked a shadow of the team who destroyed England and then Argentina in back-to-back matches.

The energy had gone. Miroslav Klose barely had a kick. It did not help that Thomas Muller was suspended. He had supplied so much of German's zip in the tournament's earlier stages.

Even so, where was the daring? World Cups are not handed out. They need to be grabbed.

And for so long it looked as if Spain were the only team really interested in pressing and creating.

That is why they deserve their night of potential glory on Sunday. Because they dared to play. They believed they were good enough to win it their way.

They will need to be better, much better, on Sunday against a Dutch side who will give them a much sterner test.

But football's great underachievers are on the cusp of history. The worthiest of finalists.