Let’s see … Where were we … before ants and LeBron James took over our lives.

Germany had just bombed Argentina out of the quarter-finals, Uruguay won that bizarre handball match over Ghana, Brazil went out to the Netherlands, and Spain took down Paraguay.

Which were the two days when what had been shaping up as South America’s World Cup … suddenly reacquired a European cast.

When considering the semifinals, two recurring ideas were …

1. That coulda/shoulda been the Americans in there. Ghana was beatable. So was Uruguay. When will the U.S. have another chance that good to get to the Final Four?  Will any of us be alive to see it?

2. The sudden Euro shift.

A few days before, Obsevers Who Know were debating the demise of European soccer, focusing on England, France and Italy. All former champions, yes, with three of the top half-dozen domestic leagues in the world. Italy and France, finalists four years before, finished at the bottom of their groups, and England was blown out of the round of 16 by the Germans. A Brit I know, who covers soccer for a living, wrote with great conviction that European football was jaded and spent, that the future belonged to anyone and everyone else. And two days later he was trying to explain why he had been so horrible wrong.

Four South American sides were in the quarterfinals, and a Brazil-Argentina final seemed like the way this would turn out.

Then came Brazil’s shaky second half against the Dutch, and Joakim Loew outcoaching Diego Maradona’s Argentina, and there went the South American superpowers.

Of the final four, Uruguay looked overmatched … and it was. The Dutch have been anything but the elegant attacking side we came to expect of them, beginning with Johan Cruyff and Total Football in 1974 and continuing right through at least the semifinal of France 1998. These Dutch guys are a bit chippy, and even a little dorky. Little guys, bald guys, guys who have technical skill but hardly look like athletes. So.

Then Germany and Spain, which had the feel of The Real Championship Match … which turned into something rather dull because the Germans were simply unable to win the ball from the Spanish and keep it long enough to gear up that full-speed offense of theirs. It finished 1-0 Spain, and we had a pair of finalists with zero World Cup championships between them, which hadn’t happened since … 1978, when Argentina and the Dutch played in the final.

A strange and disappointing but perhaps predictable characteristic of the World Cup is how the frenetic pace of the first three weeks turns into …. a final week with a high degree of tedium. Two days off … one semifinal, the other semifinal, two days off, the third-place match which we watch only because we haven’t had any soccer for three days … and then finally a championship that seems as overhyped as a Super Bowl.

So. Spain and the Netherlands.

Let’s back up for a moment. Two European teams, a European champion a certainty — and the first to win outside of Europe.

Before the whole thing began, the theories supporting a European team perhaps winning this focused on a couple of realities: the Euros being able to play, essentially, in their own time zone; and the South African winter, which is really quite a lot like the weather the European club seasons begin and end in.

While prominent European sides were crashing out, we were back to the “they can’t hack being outside their little continent” state of mind. But now that we are at the end, and two packs of Euros are contesting the final, perhaps we need to focus on the climate. Europe just doesn’t get all that hot, and their teams seemed to melt in the sapping summer heat of, say, the United States and Mexico and even Japan/South Korea. If you noticed, everyone in South Africa is well-bundled, and more than a few games have been visited by violent rainstorms. If a single game was played in punishing heat … I missed it.

Anyway, that “Europe has never won outside of Europe” thing is over, and perhaps we need to consider the possibility that one of their sides might even keep Brazil from winning on its home soil, four years hence.

Tomorrow’s final … It would be pretty to think it will be a good match. But the World Cup hasn’t had a truly fun final since 1986 (the first I watched), when Argentina and Maradona defeated Germany 3-2. And given Spain’s preference for holding … and holding and holding the ball, without going forward with much aggression … in combination with what doesn’t seem to be a truly dangerous Dutch side …

I’m thinking Spain 1, Netherlands 0. A goal by, say, Sergio Ramos, in about the 70th minute.

I would love to be wrong. Four or five goals in the final would be great fun. But I don’t see it happening. It has been a vaguely unsatisfying World Cup, with the best team struggling to score, the dynamic South Americans suddenly leaving the scene, Germany unable to mount a threat to Spain … and here we are, set up for a drone-fest. Hate to see it end like that.