There’s no villain for me in this year’s World Cup final. Neither the Netherlands nor Spain have ever won, so there’s no real underdog. And neither team makes my blood boil, the way Italy did in 2006.

So, if there’s no one to root against, then whom to pull for? That’s easy for me, personally. Spain is soul country for me, and has been since my bull-running and bota-abusing days in the early 1970s when I was stationed there in the navy.

Amsterdam treated me very well on my one trip there, and if the Dutch were taking on the Italians, then it would be Go Oranje!

That is, because of my personal connection to the country, I’d be supporting Spain even if I preferred the Dutch brand of soccer. And many people do. They find Spain’s style boring and irritating. The Spanish midfielders, Xavi Hernandez (the one who looks a little like a youngish Raymond Burr) and Andres Iniesta (the one who looks like a balding accountant) are the backbone of the team, even if goal-happy striker David Villa is the face. (He just looks like David Villa.)

They (and the other Spanish midfielders, Busquets and Xabi (yes, Xabi and Xavi) Hernandez control the game by running the athletic version of a jam session. They pass the ball among themselves with casual, and close to unerring grace, and make the other team chase. Once the opponents are tired of chasing, then Spain attacks.

One goal will usually do (Spain only has seven in the entire tournament, while Holland has 12) because the opponent has so much trouble getting his foot on the ball. When he does have it, he’s likely to do something stupid out of frustration.

That’s what happened to Germany in the semifinal, at any rate.

As I write this, I realize how boring the Spanish “attack” does sound. A writer at the Guardian recently joked that Spain’s team meals always start late because Iniesta and Xavi won’t stop passing the salt. But for me, watching them provides the real privilege of watching masters at work, performing their mastery. They come as close as athletes can to transcending their game. And their work is not as quite a severe as I’ve made it sound.

Enough of their passes come on “how-did-he-do-that” heel flicks or after short, but dazzling, runs that I feel entertained as well as edified.

And after all the midfield foreplay, Villa’s nervy short-range scoring provides the orgasmic release. (I’m just starting to get how sexual a game soccer is.)

So I’d be rooting for Spain even if I’d never set foot there. Ironically, Spain has perfected the Dutch style of the 1970s. The Dutch soccer god, Johan Cruyff, took the “total football” concept with him to Spain when he coached Barcelona, and he now looks on the Spaniards as his footballing heirs, and is pulling for them over his own native country.

That probably pisses the Dutch off. They’ve suffered brutal losses in two finals, including the 1974 final against West Germany that came when the Dutch towered above the rest of world soccer, but through loss of concentration let the Germans bring home the prize. (In his book Brilliant Orange, David Winner describes that loss as “an open wound, an unpunished crime.”) So against most countries I’d be rooting for Holland.

But this isn’t most countries. This is Spain.

Neither country has a large contingent in Houston, so I’m not sure where to go to watch with the natives, though Rioja will draw a big Spanish turnout.

Discovery Green will have another outdoor viewing party. That sounds like the ticket for me. How many thousands will turn out in the mid-July sun? It will be an interesting test of soccer’s, and the World Cup’s, local appeal.