And Then There Was Eight

Today the last 16 knock-out phase of the World Cup drew to a close. You may remember that at the start of the tournament I spent a lot of time mocking people who were tipping Argentina to win because I thought they were over-rated. I also spent almost as much time tipping Switzerland because I thought they were under-rated. Today's first match was between Argentina and Switzerland.

What has made Switzerland so interesting throughout this tournament is that they are a relatively small nation with no domestic league to speak of. As a result they don't really have a huge pool of talented players to choose from. However their head coach - Ottmar Hitzfeld - has found a way around this by using a very inventive formation. Essentially Switzerland play in a classic 4-4-2 formation. However their wing-backs (the two defenders on the edges of the pitch) constantly sweep forward almost ahead of their wingers (the mid-fielders on the edges of the pitch) who also sweep forward to join the centre-forwards. As a result Switzerland frequently find themselves attacking with six players up front.

The problem is that if their opponents are quick counter-attackers (like France) then Switzerland's two centre-backs often find themselves defending against two and sometimes even three attackers. This is really difficult to do so Switzerland can find themselves letting in a lot of goals. Argentina are a team that like to play three and sometimes even four centre-forwards meaning that they posed a huge threat to Switzerland. As a result for this match Switzerland abandoned their attacking 4-4-2 in favour of a classic 4-4-2 with all the defenders acting as defenders and not sweeping forward. This coupled with some shockingly poor play by the Argentinians which often saw them struggling to string two passes together meant that Switzerland were able to contain the threat of Argentina.

However it also meant that Switzerland lost a lot of their attacking edge. Perhaps as further evidence of how poor a game Argentina had this did not mean Switzerland lacked chances. In fact Switzerland probably created the best chances of the first-half. Unfortunately the clear instruction from Hitzfeld to concentrate on defence rather than attack couple with their lack of a seasoned finisher meant that Switzerland squandered those chances. For example in the 39th minute Switzerland's Josip Drmic found himself one on one with - Sergio Romero - the Argentine 'keeper only to blast the ball straight at him when he had the whole rest of the goal to aim at. Earlier in the 28th minute Granit Xhaka's shot from a corner was stopped by Romero only for the ball to fall to Stephan Lichtsteiner who was also unable to put it past Romero.

Despite Switzerland creating further chances and Argentina creating chances of their own it finished 0-0 after the 90 minutes so the game headed into extra-time. It looked certain to go to penalties until the 118th minute when Lionel Messi slipped a through-ball to Ángel Di Maríawho broke his habit of the match by smashing the ball in from the right-hand side of the penalty area to put Argentina 1-0 up.

With seconds left in the game this left Switzerland know option then to attack and attack they did. In the 121st minute (90+30+5mins stoppage) Ricardo Rodriguez put a cross in the box which was found by Diego Benaglio whose shot was deflected out for another corner. From that corner Xherdan Shaqiri found Blerim Dzemaili whose header beat the 'keeper only to hit the post. Dzemaili recovered to collect the rebound but sadly put it wide. With the last meaningful kick of the game Shaqiri blasted a free-kick from the edge of the "D" only for it to be blocked by a wall that had advanced quite a way beyond it's 10 yard line.

1-0 was how it finished so despite being awful for the entire game Argentina advanced to the quarter-finals while Switzerland are left cursing the lack of an experienced striker.

Today's other match between the USA and Belgium was marred by the arrival of a Brazilian pitch invader in the 16th minute. This has of course become World Cup short-hand for the pop-star Rihanna who has been providing an intermittent commentary throughout the tournament. Although Rihanna is proving herself to be a woman who is incapable of just going with the joke her commentary should have been just a bit of fun. However people haven't helped but notice that Rihanna has not only completely failed to support her (adoptive) home team of the USA but has also been a vocal supporter of teams playing against the USA. I'm sure for the most part this has been for entirely personal reasons such as the fact that Rihanna has worked with Shakira who is effectively married to Spain's Gerard Pique, has met Germany's Miroslav Klose and like a lot of women finds Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo inexplicably attractive.

However some people have gone onto suggest that Rihanna is childishly rallying against the USA in a desperate effort to prove - to herself mainly - that she isn't simply property of the US State Department. This rumour has become so strong that the US State Department has been forced to formally deny it by granting Meriam Ibrahim - a Sudanese women who was pardoned for apostasy in a massive metaphor for Rihanna - effective asylum in their Embassy in Khartoum. The intention being to proclaim Rihanna as US property while Rihanna covers Harper's Bizarre Arabia in a desperate effort to continue with that "Free the Nipple" nonsense that was laughed out the door during the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Obviously all this somewhat spoiled my enjoyment of the match. However going in it was clear that the USA were very much the underdogs because Belgium have a number of skillful and speedy players who have caused a lot of trouble for teams such as Algeria who are much stronger in the USA.

Belgium are particularly dangerous in mid-field and the much talked about "final third" of the pitch (essentially around the start of the 18 yard box). As such a lot of people - myself, FIFA, the BBC - thought that the USA would chose to counter this threat by playing a 4-5-1 formation that would have left Clint Dempsey alone upfront but absolutely packed the mid-field area with players. Although I don't think there was anything sinister in the decision Jurgen Klinsmann - the USA's head-coach - instead decided to counter the threat by playing the standard 4-4-2 only with Kyle Beckerman being replaced by Geoff Cameron who was meant to be fitter and is traditionally a defender.

Sadly this didn't work and although they managed to put some good passages of play together and create a few attacks Belgium largely toyed with the USA throughout the game. Then - true to form - Belgium came alive in the final 10 minutes putting in shot after shot many which were ably saved by the USA 'keeper Tim Howard. However while it will probably offend many Americans I have to say that during this period Belgium seemed to be pulling their shooting punches. This was a little nudge to the Germans because although Germany most certainly played to win in their final group game against the USA once they'd gone 1-0 up they did seem to hold back from completely destroying the USA. So with the game going into extra-time at 0-0 the Belgians were suddenly much less charitable with Kevin De Bruyne banging in Belgium's first goal on 92 minutes. Romelu Lukaku - who you never want to see coming on at the start of extra-time - added a second on 105 minutes following a fast break.

However there was absolutely nothing planned about what happened next with the USA tearing into the second half of extra-time as if they had something to prove. They were quickly rewarded in the 107th minute when Julian Green spun in the penalty and scuffed a volley past Thibaut Courtois - the Belgium 'keeper to bring the USA back to 2-1. There then followed a breathless 13 minute battle to see if the USA could conjure up an equaliser. I think they could have done it if only Jermaine Jones had accepted that scoring one good goal does not make him Lionel Messi and crossed into the box rather then having a shot in the 108th minute. Sadly he didn't and America couldn't so 2-1 it ended.

As a result Belgium will go on to face Argentina in the quarter-final where they've got to be fancying their chances. However as my brother pointed out the true tragedy is that American fans never got to experience the joy of an extra-time comeback only to have it rapidly wiped out by the agony of a penalty shoot-out loss.

23:59 on 1/7/14 (UK date).