Spain defeats Germany in World Cup semi-finals.

Vicente del Bosque’s side won their fourth straight game 1-0 and will now play the Netherlands in Sunday’s final at Soccer City.

Spain deserved their victory after controlling huge periods of the match, but once again it was far from a vintage performance.

Del Bosque’s team improved on their scrappy performance against Paraguay in the previous round, but still struggled to carve out clear openings.

The winning goal came when Puyol showed great determination to atone for a poor first-half miss by heading home Xavi’s corner with 17 minutes remaining.

The Euro 2008 champions, who defeated Germany 1-0 in the final of that competition, should have scored a second after striking with the sort of counter-attack that had been a trademark of their opponent’s play in this competition, but Pedro failed to pick out a completely unmarked Fernando Torres.

Germany had invited pressure by adopting an increasingly deep defensive line as the match wore on—and may regret not taking the game to their opponents more while it remained goalless.

Joachim Loew’s team scored four against both England and Argentina in their previous games and had illuminated the competition with their bold play.

Still, they had few opportunities to strike on the counter against Spain, so Germany tasted defeat at the semi-final stage for the second successive World Cup.