dutch coach bert van marwijk has instilled the two things that most dutch teams have been lacking - steel and a common purpose

The World Cup is like an global Expo of football – every nation brings their ideas about the future of the game to one exhibition – and the winner gets to dictate the preferred system of choice for the next couple of years.

Four years ago, Italy’s win put the argument for their modern form of catenaccio – a bolted door with intelligent movement in a packed midfield – and it has been on view throughout this tournament as a default modus operandi for many teams. The smaller footballing nations have used this “back nine” system very well: New Zealand surprised by their organisation, as did Paraguay, while Switzerland also had some early success when they beat Spain.

Even Brazil have veered towards an anti-Samba, more muscular output in this World Cup – and it worked for a while until they came up against one of the more successful, newer doctrines vying to be crowned modus operandi of the next four years – the Dutch.

Only Uruguay are left to carry the torch for the Italian way, and they will come up against The Netherlands on Tuesday night with the knowledge that a better exponent in Brazil failed to overcome the Dutch system.

Then there were two + two

In the last four we have two newer doctrines of the game vying for the crown in The Netherlands and Germany, alongside the Spanish, who laid down their manifesto two years ago at Euro 2008.

Spain play like the Dutch of old: they believe that passing is the key to success, interlinking and building with patience and then pace, with a phalanx of playmakers in Xavi and Iniesta behind a clinical vanguard of David Villa and the yet-to-fire Fernando Torres.

The Germans will be a real test of this new system. Their studious coach Joachim Loew has developed an incredibly effective form of counter-attacking football that should be called ‘The Peacock’. The Germans work for the ball deep inside their own half, and when they win it they fan out, like a peacock’s feathers, and attack in big numbers.

So far, teams have found them very difficult to contain because of the apparent chaos of their counter-attacking bent, but I am guessing that in time there will appear some method in their madness and coaches will find a way to contain.

The Netherlands – the true pioneers of the modern game – have dropped their old system of total football and have developed a form of the game that is perhaps less eye-catching to the untrained eye, but incredibly effective – and tumultuously addictive to watch.

They have dropped their traditional wide play and patient passing game for a system that involves a single striker – capable of dropping deep – ahead of a liquid midfield that has two spoilers in it (Nigel De Jong and Mark Van Bommel normally, but Demy de Zeeuw will deputise admirably in the semi-final for the suspended De Jong) and three World class attacking players in Dirk Kuyt, Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben. Robben plays wide, but cuts in close to the area and has deceptive pace, which makes him unstoppable around the edge of the area. Kuyt does the donkey work with class, while Sneijder drifts into the space made by Van Persie’s (or the enigmatic Klaas jan Huntelaar’s) movement. It is a multiple threat system that has no peers.

Uruguay claim they play the same way (but have nowhere near the strength in depth that The Netherlands boast) and will want to harry them instead, to push the Dutch off their tempo – a tactic that has worked against the Dutch in the past. Whether it will work against this new system, remains to be seen.

Whatever happens, the next six days will be a fascinating study in modern football.

By the time we reach the end of Sunday’s final we will know which system is in the ascendancy. I suspect it will be a system that will become a standard across the globe in the four years before the next World Cup in Brazil.