The collisions of heavyweights are often light on goals

Tonight sees the 2014 World Cup’s first clash of two footballing heavyweights in the form of a replay of the 2010 final between Spain and the Netherlands. Due to the nature and size of the competition, World Cups don’t often haul together two of the big hitters at this stage but this year has presented a plethora of such fixtures as England, Italy and Uruguay prepare to faceoff in Group C, whilst Germany face Portugal on Monday. It should be a rare feast of football but, if recent history is anything to go by, don’t expect fireworks.

In my World Cup-watching experience, the games between two of football’s big names are not the ding-dong battles they are often billed as. Much is made of the fear of losing games in the group stages and that appears to ring especially true in these fixtures, as it often transpires that neither side is particularly willing to take the risks needed to go on and win the game.

Instead, they become cagey and tactical, as though each side is trying to weigh the other up for a potential meeting later down the line rather than attempting to take the points on offer. In fact, not since the 1982 World Cup have we seen more than two goals in a game between two such sides, when audiences were treated to four goals in the clash between England and France after Bryan Robson’s early opener.

In 2006, a potential classic between Argentina and the Netherlands was essentially ‘spoiled’ by the fact that both sides had effectively qualified for the second round. It was a similar situation four years later when both Brazil and Portugal could settle for a point in what was basically a dead rubber. All four teams rested players on those occasions, and both games finished goalless.

Spain have been involved in their fair share of World Cup let-downs, being involved in a fruitless 0-0 draw with Uruguay at Italia 90 before holding the attacking talents of Germany’s Voller, Klinsmann and Effenberg to 1-1 draw four years later, so don’t look to them in search of a goal-fest.

For England fans, the 2002 clash with Argentina is remembered so fondly for David Beckham’s tale of redemption that it is easy to forget that the game itself was hardly an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Neither team was already qualified, nor was it a cagey opening fixture. It just appears that there is a trend for low-scoring encounters between the biggest nations in World Cup group stages.

Without disrespecting Mexico and Cameroon, tonight may be the first time we see some genuinely good football being played at the tournament but history wouldn’t suggest a goal-fest. Although the Netherlands find themselves guided by a coach much more inclined to attack than four years ago and we all know the talents of Spain going forward, we may well see two sides crippled by a fear of losing and a far cry from England’s three-goal exploits against the French more than thirty years ago.