Today features one marquee match-up everyone is desperate to watch, and another for which tickets are readily available. Both turn out to be barn-burners
Netherlands (2) - Mexico (1)
Right in the cojones, this one is going to smart for a long, long, long time.
The defending Olympic champs, Mexico, looked in poor form leading up to the World Cup, dropping games to the underwhelming Yanks, for example. But they tied Brazil during pool play, earning the A2 seed, and have looked quite good of late. Their GK, Ochoa, has been stopping the unstoppable, routinely making amazing saves (beginning with his stoppage-time stop against Cameroon in the first match of pool play).
The Flying Dutchmen have been the team to watch so far, beginning with their epic defeat of Spain in their first match in pool play. Every cab driver in Brazil thinks it will be Hollande v Alemanha facing off in Rio's Maracana in July. No one expected them to have an easy time with Mexico, but everyone expected The Oranje to prevail.
Well, the Mexicans had other ideas and were about to pop the fiesta champagne, when Wesley Sneijder decided to keep it interesting. The Dutchman's fabulous strike in the 88th minute froze a shielded Ochoa and found the back of the net with aplomb.
Six minutes later, a questionable call on what appeared to be an exaggerated fall, if not an outright flop, in the box led to a game-winning PK.
If Mexico could take Netherlands to the limit, then maybe Brazil isn't as vulnerable as we thought, or maybe the Dutch are more vulnerable than anyone thought.
Hope you didn't turn your TV sets off early boys and girls.
Costa Rica 1 (5) - Greeks 1 (3)
Not to be outdone by the Brazil/Chile or Netherlands/Mexico fireworks, the Greeks and Costa Ricans refused to recognize how bored the rest of the world was with their match and decided to play it anyway. That said, tickets were being sold for half price or less just before game time.
Greece looked reasonably good and had a slight edge in possession, but had a much bigger edge in shots-on-goal. Unfortunately, they also had a huge edge in off-sides and couldn't convert any chances early.
Costa Rica was equally ineffectual, and the first half ended 0-0.
Early in the second half, Bryan Ruiz scored a goal on a crappy, dribbling shot. I don't know what happened, but it looked like the GK thought it was going wide. It wasn't.
But Oscar Duarte's second yellow in the 66th minute left Costa Rica playing a man down, and Greece began to press the attack more.
The game stayed 1-0 until early into stoppage time, when the Greeks succeeded in keeping it interesting. Socratis Papastathopoulos was credited with the equalizer and with the longest name I've ever heard.
No more scoring in OT led to a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
At 4-3, with Greece trying to keep pace, the Costa Rican GK came up with a huge save. A fifth straight successful penalty from Costa Rica sealed the Greeks' face.
Nice run, boys, and a seriously fun game to watch in person.
That's the second game in the first four of the knock-out stage to go to penalties. The other two games featured a PK winner in stoppage time by Netherlands, and 2/3 of a hat trick for Colombia's James.
Hope you tuned in, boys and girls.
Tomorrow, France beats Nigeria, and Germany destroys Algeria.
No comments:
Post a Comment