The Fantastic Four.

Yesterday (5/7/14) the quarter-finals of the 2014 World Cup drew to a close with matches between Argentina and Belgium and the Netherlands and Costa Rica.

The first match seemed the more difficult to predict because despite their obvious stars the Argentine team had been mis-firing throughout the tournament often relying on a moment of magic from Lionel Messi to get themselves out of trouble against lesser opponents such as Iran. It has been a similar story for Belgium with their team of young stars often relying on late goals to see off opponents although they always seemed more organised and co-ordinated then the Argentines.

Things changed dramatically in yesterday's match though with Argentina finally deciding to play as a team. So suddenly passes were completed and runs were predicted. Messi as usual was on spectacular form at one point riding tackle after tackle from five Belgian players to win a free-kick in the 38th minute. On this occasion though he was assisted by Gonzalo Higuaín who was excellent throughout until he was substituted in the 80th minute and Ángel Di María who at one point succeeded in juggling the ball on his feet to turn past a Belgian mid-fielder. It was these three who combined for the first goal with Messi causing chaos in the mid-field and drawing out Vincent Kompany - Belgium's talented defender - with his excellent dribbling skills before passing the ball to Di Maria who quickly passed it on to Higuain who was in the space where Kompany should have been. Higuain struck the ball on the half-volley and glided it in at the far post to put Argentina 1-0 up in just the 8th minute.

By contrast it was Belgium who seemed incredibly disjointed playing more as an unconnected group of talented individuals rather than a team. Obviously with their talent Belgium's stars did play the type of open, attacking football that we've become accustomed to during this tournament and did create goal-scoring opportunities. However none of these chances really felt genuine because the Belgians lacked the vision (or team-spirit) to identify players in good positions and provide them with the passes and crosses needed to score. This was probably summed up in the 75th minute when Jan Vertonghen won Belgium a free-kick on - their - left-side of the penalty area. This was really too far out for a shot on goal but seeing his name in lights Dries Mertens had a go anyway only for his shot to go wide of the goal. Meanwhile his teammates were left standing in the 6 yard box scowling at him for not crossing the ball into them.

As a result Higuain's goal was enough to take Argentina through to the semi-finals with them having finally delivered a performance that warranted being there.


On paper the other match of the day between the Netherlands and Costa Rica should have been much easier to predict. After all the Netherlands were finalists in the 2010 World Cup, had destroyed the 2010 winners Spain 5-1 in their opening game and had impressed everyone at this tournament with their very skilled and professional style of football. By contrast Costa Rica were supposed to have been the whipping boys of Group D rather than quarter-finalists.

As they have done throughout the tournament the Costa Ricans showed no interest what was on paper and from the start of the match started playing a very disciplined game that pressed the Dutch and prevented them from finding their rhythm. However that is not to say that Costa Rica set out to kill off the game and play for penalties instead coming forward whenever the opportunity allowed and creating chances of their own. For example Johnny Acosta came close in the 34th minute, Giancarlo Gonzalez came close in the 65th minute and most of the second-half of extra-time belonged to Costa Rica.

My only complaint about the way the Costa Ricans played was that in the build up to the match they seemed to have made the mistake of believing that Mexico's complaint that the Netherlands' Arjen Robben had dived to win the penalty that put Mexico out in the 94th minute (90+5mins stoppage) of the pair's last 16 match was widely shared. As a result they seemed to believe that the referee would be prepared to deliver a type restorative justice meaning that they could foul Robben with impunity and only needed to fall over in his general vicinity to win free-kicks and yellow cards.

The problem was that outside of Mexico no-one in the football world saw anything wrong with the way that Robben won the penalty and instead were rather impressed by his skill and professionalism. Plus there is a world of difference between a referee making up for an early mistake later on in the same match and a completely different referee trying to correct a mistake in a different match against different opposition. Even Uruguay were given fair treatment in their game against Columbia despite the refereeing in their match against Italy being so bad and so biased the result probably should have been annulled.

As a result Ravshan Irmatov - the Uzbek referee - had no intention of being anything other than fair and unbiased. Unfortunately the Costa Ricans didn't seem to get this message even after the referee made a big point of booking Júnior Díaz in the 37th minute for a foul on Robben. As a result they continued making bad fouls, diving and bad-mouthing (dissent) the referee every time he stuck to the rules and gave a decision against them. This meant that Costa Rica gave away a lot of risky free-kicks from which the Dutch could have scored such in the 52nd minute when Michael Umaña brought down Robben, the 73rd minute when Cristian Gamboa brought down Daley Blind and when Giancarlo Gonzalez brought down Robben in the 81st minute to name but a few.

It of course also meant that the Costa Ricans got on the referee's nerves which cost them chances of their own. For example when Marco Ureña was brought down in the penalty area in the 98th minute it was one of those 50/50 calls that go your way if the referee likes you but because Costa had annoyed the referee it went against them. So rather than being biased in favour of the Netherlands I found the referee to be very patient and professional. For example in the 91st minute (90+5mins stoppage) when Júnior Díaz again brought Robben down with a bad foul he really should have been shown his second yellow card and sent-off.

Despite their otherwise excellent performance Costa Rica were helped by the fact that luck didn't seem to be with the Dutch and they played with the sort of arrogance that suggested they felt that they didn't need to create a winning goal because one would come along soon enough. Plus their captain and supposed striker Robin van Persie had a really bad game. For example on another day Wesley Sneijder's 82nd minute free-kick would have gone in rather then hitting the post while van Persie's 92nd (90+5min stoppage) shot could well have curled in under the bar or not been blocked at all if only he'd hit it better.

After 90 minutes of normal time and 30 minutes of extra-time there were no goals so the match went to a penalty shoot-out. It was here that the Dutch's infamous mind games returned when Tim Krul was brought on at the last possible moment to replace Jasper Cillessen who had played well in goal for the Netherlands throughout the game. The intention here was purely to unsettle the Costa Rican penalty takers by putting the thought in their head that Krul has been doing nothing throughout this World Cup other than studying Costa Rican penalty takers so he knew exactly what they were going to do.

For the most part this didn't seem to work with Celso Borges confidently scoring Costa Rica's first penalty so Krul stepped up his efforts. This involved him walking up to the Costa Rican penalty takers and getting in their faces pointing at them and generally trying to intimidate them just before they took their shot. I'm pretty sure that the only reason that Krul wasn't booked for this is because no-one is quite sure what happens when a goal keeper - who has to be pre-designated - is sent-off in a penalty shoot-out. However it seemed to work with Bryan Ruiz' nervous looking second penalty being saved by Krul. With the Dutch scoring all their penalties when Michael Umaña had Costa Rica's fifth penalty saved the Dutch won the shoot-out 4-3.

So now the Netherlands will go onto play Argentina in Wednesday's (9/7/14) semi-final but did so in such a way as to turn every neutral against them. However with their opponents being Argentina they will have to go a long way to turn the Brazilian fans against them. 

18:00 on 6/7/14 (UK date).