The Third Place Play-off.

Today at the World Cup has seen the third place play-off between Brazil and the Netherlands. Although the winners of this game get bronze medals and an extra USD 2 million is prize money for coming third it is simply not the final. As a result it is the game that nobody ever wants to play in and no-one really cares if they lose.

Added to some Brazilian defensive frailties that have recently become apparent the Dutch decided to abandoned their trademark tactical game in favour of just having a go at scoring. This paid off inside all of two minutes when Arjen Robben played a neat one two with Robin van Persie to get past the Brazilian defence and make a run into the penalty area. At this point Thiago Silva grabbed Robben firmly on the shoulder and pulled him to the ground. As Robben was still being pulled as he entered the penalty area this was a clear penalty and because Thiago Silva was the last man he should have received a straight red card and been sent off. However keeping with the exhibition spirit of the game the Algerian referee - Djamel Haimoudi - showed remarkable restraint and only showed Thiago Silva a yellow card. He did award the penalty though which van Persie blasted home to put the Netherlands 1-0 up.

Although as a neutral I think this was the worst possible start for the game Robben's charging run did highlight why I think he should win the Golden Ball award for the player of the tournament. While I appreciate that Robben isn't exactly popular in Mexico and hasn't really been rewarded with the goals his performances have been first rate and relentless in every game he's played and without him the Dutch would have just been rather good then the third best team in the tournament. In my eyes that clearly makes him the player of the tournament.

Brazil's defensive frailties very much came to the fore in the 16th minute when the Dutch put a pretty meaningless cross into the penalty area. This quickly found the head of David Luiz who - for some reason - decided to ignore the one bit of advice that defenders are given from about the age of 5 years old and simply head the ball out for a corner. Instead David Luiz headed the ball back into his own penalty area perfectly setting up Daley Blind who neatly slotted the ball into the top corner to put the Dutch 2-0 up.

This is where everyone started to become very worried for Brazil because in their last match they also found themselves 2-0 down inside 20 minutes which prompted them to completely collapse leaving them 5-0 down inside 30 minutes. On this occasion though Brazil managed to hold it together and not only didn't concede anymore goals but also started pressing forward to get back in the game.

Brazil were though hampered by a pretty dirty performance from the Dutch. For example in the 28th minute Bruno Martins Indi very subtly caught Oscar on his studs as he went by. This was just enough to knock Oscar off balance bringing him to the ground but the contact was so light you barely would have noticed it. The referee did notice it though and Martins Indi was warned but not booked. About 2 minutes later van Persie did almost exactly the same thing to Ramires preventing him from launching an attack. Then in the 43rd minute Ron Vlaar did an absolutely crunching tackle on Ramires straight in the centre of the shin. Although a free-kick was awarded Vlaar wasn't even booked when he could have well been looking at a red card.

The match sort of carried on like this into the second half until what had been a bad game for the referee came to a head with a monumental mistake in the 68th minute. Chasing the ball in the Dutch penalty area Oscar was just about to get past Blind when Blind stamped on his toes and crashed into his knee bringing him down. This again was a clear penalty but the referees response was show Oscar a yellow card for simulation. This was despite the impact of the clear contact being so severe that Blind himself was lying on the pitch having injured his knee. The Dutch team then immediately decided that Blind's injury was so severe that he had to be stretchered off to be replaced by Daryl Janmaat before the referee could catch up and correct his mistake.

One possible explanation for the referees poor performance is that the Netherlands' Head Coach Luis van Gaal has been at his mind games again. In his pre-match press conference he pretty much accused FIFA and everybody involved in the World Cup of fixing the competition to make sure that Brazil won. This was clearly intended to intimidate the referee into not being seen to be soft on Brazil and not to be seen to be hard on the Dutch. As a result I think van Gaal is going to be a very good fit at Manchester United. After all David Moyes has already proved that they can't win based on footballing ability.

Adding insult to injury Georginio Wijnaldum netted the Dutch's third in the 91st minute (90+ 5mins) giving them a 3-0 victory.

With Brazil's World Cup having drawn to a disappointing conclusion I have to say something about what I think went wrong. Despite their obvious defensive issues I think the main problem was this sort of cult Brazil built up around Neymar. Although this wasn't the greatest generation of Brazilian players they're not a bad team with Thiago Silva, Oscar, Willian, Ramires and David Luiz hardly being donkeys even if David Luiz would probably be happier as a mid-field player. However the team seem to have got it into their heads that they are a one man team built around their star player Neymar. So when injury forced Neymar out of the competition in the quarter-finals the whole team sort of mentally collapsed and convinced themselves they could no longer win. As a result they seem to have defeated themselves long before they ever stepped onto the pitch to face Germany.

Finally and going slightly off-topic I should point out that World Cup sponsor Budweiser have brought the popstar Rihanna to Rio to attend tomorrow's final. Budweiser's hope was that Rihanna's commentary so far would have created such a level of intrigue and interest that the World would flood to Budweiser's door to find out the amazing secret they hold. Personally if I was working the game I would look at the pitch invasions and ban the entire Budweiser delegation from the stadium due to them clearly being intent on causing trouble. 

23:00 on 12/7/14 (UK date).