Who will win the World Cup?

[Petrovale]

Chao, espanoles miserables!!!

[Petrovale]

Los aplastamos!!! Buajajajaja....

[admin]

Los aplastamos!!! Buajajajaja....

We indeed did, and changing the system just for this match has paid off very well indeed. A win against Australia and we're through.

[admin]

"If you see how he prepared us, and how he predicted the game would go, and you see how it went - unbelievable," added Van Persie about Van Gaal.

BBC Sport - World Cup 2014: Robin van Persie praise Netherlands boss

[admin]

Alan Shearer BBC Sport: "The Netherlands were sensational, it should have been seven or eight. Some of the performances - Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie and Daley Blind down that wing, they were absolutely brilliant. I have never seen that Spain back four pulled around as much as they were."

BBC Sport - World Cup 2014: Robin van Persie praise Netherlands boss

Downside, one more even half game like that and Blind will be gone from Ajax, but who cares at this point, with stuff like this:

Towards the finish, the Dutch were an unstoppable tide; the blue shirts just kept coming forward for more. Olés were their sound track but they were not satisfied to simply pass the ball, to keep it: they wanted to go on plunging the knife in, insatiable, almost sadistic. There was something about the goals, especially the fifth from Arjen Robben, that spoke of an immense superiority. Holland were enjoying this.

Spain suffer not just a defeat but a World Cup disaster against Holland | Sid Lowe | Football | The Guardian

[admin]

So far a cracking tournament, and, of course, some truly ridiculous stuff like:

Didier Deschamps has expressed concerns that France’s preparations for Sunday’s opening game against Honduras have been compromised by a possible spying mission after a drone hovered over their training camp in Brazil.

Fifa investigating France’s claims that a drone spied on training | Football | theguardian.com

"It was a clear penalty," Fred said in a video released by the Brazilian football federation on Friday. "There is no such thing as more penalty or less penalty."

Brazil's Fred: It was a clear penalty - ESPN FC

Fred the Clown..

That poor Japanese referee. Years of good reputation down the drain in a matter of seconds, although in Brazil, they see it differently:

[admin]

Fairly well informed story about Dutch football with a nice Rembrandt analogy:

With a sharp knife, he hacked down his own masterpiece to around a quarter its original size in order to prepare it for sale. Rembrandt had learned the hard way that sometimes, necessity forces you to kill the very thing you created.

Holland's World Cup win over Spain wasn't the return of Total Football - Louis van Gaal has created something new - Telegraph

[admin]

Team news Argentina: Romero; Zabaleta, Garay, Campagnaro, Fernandez, Rojo; Maxi Rodriguez, Mascherano, Di Maria; Messi, Aguero. Bosnia: Begovic; Mujdza, Bicakcic, Spahic, Kolasinac; Besic, Pjanic; Hajrovic, Misimovic, Lulic; Dzeko. Referee: The Machines, THEY'RE TAKING OVER EVERYONE RUN FOR THE HILLS THE END IS NIGH WE'VE GONE TOO FAR IT'S THE MATRIX IT'S TERMINATOR I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN Joel Aguilar Chicas (El Salvador).

Argentina v Bosnia-Herzegovina: World Cup 2014 – live! | Football | theguardian.com

[admin]

Well, I had them as favorites but on the basis of today's game, hardly worthy of that. That was about the worst first half of Messi I've seen ever, and Argentina was awful the first half too.

Only a little bit better in the second half. But then again, world champions have had a bad start before..

[admin]

Now we know why Argentina in general, and Messi in particular were so poor the first half against Bosnia:

Argentina star Lionel Messi admitted to nerves in his side's victory over Bosnia-Hercegovina during their first game of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

BBC Sport - Lionel Messi had first game jitters for Argentina World Cup match

Argentina lined up against Bosnia with three centre backs and only Aguero ahead of Messi. And though they were soon ahead, courtesy of an early own goal, it was apparent that all was not well with the side. The first five or six times that Messi received the ball, he went for a run and was dispossessed. He had no options around him to give a pass, and Bosnia were able to get enough players around him to snuff out any danger. Argentina were a goal up at half time, but were extremely flattered by their lead. It had been a shambolic 45 minutes from a team with apparently little idea of what it was supposed to be doing. Sabella took surgical action.

BBC Sport - World Cup 2014: Lionel Messi shines after tactical change