World Cup 2014 Brasil

for all their brilliance earlier in the competition Holland showed little of their skill last night in beating Costa Rica. While I relish the Argentina Holland in being a promising mouth watering Semi final, I am not convinced that Holland have enough to cope with Messi & Co. I would certainly would agree that Costa Rica deserved more and have proved themselves to be more than a match for anyone in this tournament.

(06-07-2014 10:13 )babelover48 Wrote:  for all their brilliance earlier in the competition Holland showed little of their skill last night in beating Costa Rica. While I relish the Argentina Holland in being a promising mouth watering Semi final, I am not convinced that Holland have enough to cope with Messi & Co. I would certainly would agree that Costa Rica deserved more and have proved themselves to be more than a match for anyone in this tournament.

What have you seen in Argentina that makes you feel the Dutch are unlikely to win? Take Messi out of the team and they are pretty much a workmanlike team. Messi is obviously capable of winning a game on his own but he has hardly set the world cup alight. Holland were pretty dull last night no doubt, but if Costa Rica deserved to win last night they should have scored the goals to make that a reality. Anyone who has played football knows sometimes you have to stick in the trenches and grind a result out.

Alongside the realisation of what Neymars injury might mean to Brazil's hopes of winning the World Cup, there was apparently angry over-reaction in the Brazilian press, with one paper claiming "COVARDIA" – "cowardice". They published a gallery of photographs of "Neymar being hunted in the field", although he actually only suffered four fouls in the game, two fewer than Colombia's James Rodríguez.

As everyone seems to be doing Motty impersonations by providing some stats.... There were 54 fouls in total, more than in any other game at this World Cup, 31 of them committed by Brazil. Tactical fouling, rotating the offender so as to avoid cards, has been a pattern of Brazil's play throughout the tournament: the game with the second most fouls was their victory over Chile, when Brazil committed 28 of 51 fouls.

If there was anger in Brazil, there was even more fury in Colombia. One newspaper apparently had little doubt who was to blame for their defeat. "The Spanish referee, son of a massive bitch, the mother who bore you!".

I think it's going to be a pressure cooker of a game

(06-07-2014 12:02 )bytor Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:13 )babelover48 Wrote:  for all their brilliance earlier in the competition Holland showed little of their skill last night in beating Costa Rica. While I relish the Argentina Holland in being a promising mouth watering Semi final, I am not convinced that Holland have enough to cope with Messi & Co. I would certainly would agree that Costa Rica deserved more and have proved themselves to be more than a match for anyone in this tournament.

What have you seen in Argentina that makes you feel the Dutch are unlikely to win? Take Messi out of the team and they are pretty much a workmanlike team. Messi is obviously capable of winning a game on his own but he has hardly set the world cup alight. Holland were pretty dull last night no doubt, but if Costa Rica deserved to win last night they should have scored the goals to make that a reality. Anyone who has played football knows sometimes you have to stick in the trenches and grind a result out.

I would agree that without Messi Argentina are ordinary, but you could say the same about Holland without rRobben or van Persie or Brazil who will be missing Silva & Neymar,.

Have to disagreee bytor - Messi has been the only Argentina player to set the World Cup alight. He would be in the team of the tournament - joint second highest goalscorer and at least 85 - 95 % of their play goes through him. He's instrumental in every chance they've created so one could argue he's almost single handedly pulled them through to this stage.

I don't have any OPTA stats to hand - but every match I've seen Argentina play they've needed him to pull them through. That magic sets him aside. I think he relishes that role to be honest - and for any player to be almost single handedly responsible for pulling an entire team through to a semi, for me that has to mean he's been one of the players to set the tournament alight and for that reason would be in final team selected at the end. Not going on reputation - I'm going from what I've seen him achieve in every match so far.

If you look at my post again you will see I am not criticising Messi. If not for him its highly likely Argentina would have been eliminated earlier. Of course he would be in the team of the tournament. I don't however feel he has produced electrifying performances or mesmerised as much as say for example Maradonna or Platini did in the past. That does not detract from his ability or desire to win.

apparently Brazil are trying to get Silva's yellow card rescinded. The Ref needs to set down a standard/marker and he failed to do that until far too late which allowed a free for all between the players as he couldn't justify booking players for bad fouls given what he had let go before.

I have to say about the retrospective investigation into Ziniga, would they have done it if it wasn't a star player that was injured? I very much doubt it

(06-07-2014 12:14 )bytor Wrote:  Alongside the realisation of what Neymars injury might mean to Brazil's hopes of winning the World Cup, there was apparently angry over-reaction in the Brazilian press, with one paper claiming "COVARDIA" – "cowardice". They published a gallery of photographs of "Neymar being hunted in the field", although he actually only suffered four fouls in the game, two fewer than Colombia's James Rodríguez.

As everyone seems to be doing Motty impersonations by providing some stats.... There were 54 fouls in total, more than in any other game at this World Cup, 31 of them committed by Brazil. Tactical fouling, rotating the offender so as to avoid cards, has been a pattern of Brazil's play throughout the tournament: the game with the second most fouls was their victory over Chile, when Brazil committed 28 of 51 fouls.

If there was anger in Brazil, there was even more fury in Colombia. One newspaper apparently had little doubt who was to blame for their defeat. "The Spanish referee, son of a massive bitch, the mother who bore you!".

Argentina forward Angel Di Maria is out of Wednesday's Semi Final against Holland

Brazil's appeal against Thiago Silva's yellow card against Colombia has been rejected by FIFA, so his suspension for the semi final stands.