It was a golden double for the Dutch who had beaten Spain 3-1 in the Olympic final, two years ago in Atlanta. And so, the party that had begun nearly two weeks ago, will continue late into night today with the Dutch celebrating their third World Cup success after 1973 and 1990. For Spain, it was their second defeat in the final, the earlier one being in the inaugural edition in 1971 when they lost to Pakistan.

The Dutch lifted their game when they trailed 0-2 with just 11 minutes to go. Stephan Veen scrambled the ball in from a Wouter van Pelt pass and almost immediately, Bram Lomans won his battle with goalkeeper Ramon Jufresa for a penalty corner conversion to put the teams on par.

The two goals, coming within a space of two minutes, pricked the Spanish bubble. The Spaniards had gone2-0 up on two brilliant counter-attacks as first Javier Arnau completed a Pablo Amat-Juan Escarre move in the 18th minute and past the 20th in the second session, Victor Pujol made a penalty corner conversion.

At this juncture, Spain needed to sustain the pressure on the Dutch, but tried to defend their lead and paid the price for extreme caution. With the massive crowd, which was a sea of orange colour, screaming itself hoarse, the Dutch came back strongly. As the teams took the full-time deadlocked 2-2, the 15 minutes (seven and half minutes each way) was enforced with the provision for the golden goal.

Two minutes from the end of the second-half of the extra-time came the match-winner as Jufresa stopped a Lomans penalty corer flick and Teun de Nooijer pounced on the waist-high rebound to slap the ball to the net to the accompaniment of deafening roar.

The saddest man on the field tonight was Juan Escarre, the inspirational figure in the Spanish team. He pulled up short in the 21st minute of thefirst-half owing to a hamstring injury and watched the rest of the game from the sidelines. Surely, his absence had a dampening effect on the Spaniards who had always looked up to the balding mid-fielder.

Nevertheless, until the Dutch climbed back in the last 10 minutes, it was Spain who looked the more solid. Their defence was so impeccable that the Dutch could not make even a single attempt at the rival goal, except twice in the first-half when Jufresa blocked tries by Jeroen Delmee (27th) and Jaap Derk Buma (28th), apart from six penalty corner attempts during the match.

Up front, with Escarre guiding the moves with his usual sure touch and confidence, the Spanish counter-attacks were awesome for their speed and precision.

Final positions of teams (previous rankings in brackets): 1. Holland (2nd); 2. Spain (9th); 3. Germany (4th); 4. Australia (3rd); 5. Pakistan (1st); 6. England (6th); 7. Korea (8th); 8. Canada (11th, 1990); 9. India (5th); 10. New Zealand (9th, 1986); 11.Malaysia (10th, 1982); 12. Poland (8th, 1986).