The ManicaPost
It is the hosts’ worst nightmare come true. Argentina now advance on the Maracana Stadium, the World Cup one game from their grasp. An emphatic penalty shoot-out win — four from four, against Holland’s two — sealed it, the veteran Maxi Rodriguez thumping home the last of the night, Lionel Messi, Ezequiel Garay and Sergio Aguero having laid the groundwork.
Ron Vlaar — otherwise man of the match — and Wesley Sneijder missed for Holland. Arjen Robben and Dirk Kuyt scored. They can’t claim to have been unlucky. It is four hours since they last scored a World Cup goal.
Nor was there an opportunity for Tim Krul to repeat his heroics against Costa Rica. All the substitutes had been used when extra-time ended, meaning the duties fell to Jasper Cillessen, the man who was replaced for the vital stage of the quarter-final.
This was a semi-final that failed to get the pulse racing, with Lionel Messi well marshalled by a well-drilled Dutch team and Robin van Persie quiet at the other end. The crowd in Sao Paulo and millions watching around the world endured a stalemate as the two titans cancelled each other out.
Lionel Messi had done almost everything for Argentina at this World Cup, but against Holland he couldn’t inspire them to a win in normal time.
In fact, he didn’t even manage a touch in the Dutch box. And so the crucial semi final went to penalties. Messi calmly and comfortably tucked his away and it set the tone for the Argentinians in the shoot-out — scoring all four. Messi might just have made the difference again, sorting out his side when it most mattered.
Sergio Romero, who saved twice, the second from Sneijder simply exceptional, was noticeably taller when the pair embraced and wished each other good luck before the event. Cillessen has never saved a penalty in his professional career. Last night would have been a good place to start, and the anguish showed on his face.
This was the first World Cup semi-final to end in a goalless draw, yet in its own way it felt like a return to normality after the earth-shattering strangeness of events in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday.
Good teams cancel each other out. That is the way the highest level of the game often works. It is unfortunate. It is dull.
But it is also football. We expected Holland and Argentina to go at each other hammer and tongs but they are too smart for that. So Argentina pressed and denied Holland the opportunity to counter-attack; Holland crowded out the man who makes Argentina tick, Messi.
It says something when Vlaar is man of the match, but he was. A centre-half whose form for Aston Villa has been inconsistent at best, was transformed here into a beacon of excellence. Rio Ferdinand said it was the finest individual defensive performance of the tournament, and he would know. Ignore the penalty shoot-out heartbreak. He wasn’t there for that.
The problem was that Holland were so intent on stopping Argentina that they forgot to play themselves. It was 99 minutes before they mustered a shot at goal — through Robben but it was far from his best work — and an outstanding Javier Mascherano tackle on the same player thwarted their best, their only, real chance of the second half.
So this is not one of those smug lectures on the purity of the defensive stalemate. This was a lousy match, full stop. We have seen plenty of games at this competition that have been thrilling without the net bulging every five minutes, but this wasn’t one of them.
There is much to be admired in the defensive organisation of teams but Holland haven’t scored in four hours here and that isn’t good enough.
The aim of football, the very essence of the activity, is to score, and both teams failed in that objective. In a second half barely improved on the dismal first, the one real chance fell to Argentina in the 76th minute.
Gonzalo Higuain failed to put away a nice cross by Enzo Perez at the near post. He was taken off soon after, and replaced by Sergio Aguero. It wasn’t his night either.
Even so, were you watching, Brazil? Argentina and Holland may have led this World Cup gently upstairs to sleep, but when the first penalty was placed on the spot, they were still both within sight of the World Cup final.
Brazil’s dreams were crushed within 25 minutes of kick-off the previous night, Germany dishing out humiliation on an unimagined scale amid defensive calamity. What Luiz Felipe Scolari would have given for this level of resilience. That’s what Brazil needed: Ron Vlaar.
Now there’s a sentence few would think could ever be written.
The half-time announcer solemnly intoned the score as if the crowd could not count to zero. This was a semi-final as it should be. Not the same as the way we would like it to be, all end to end and toe to toe. This was one of those games in which two highly competent teams play out a cautious first half, respecting their opponents, wary of their skills.
Holland did their best to contain Messi, and largely succeeded; Argentina snuffed out Robben like the molten remains of a candle long past midnight. With 35 minutes gone, the most inspirational player in the Dutch team during this campaign had touched the ball a total of four times, twice on each flank, never to great effect.
It was impossible not to occasionally notice the ticking clock and recall how many goals Germany had scored at this stage 24 hours earlier, but expectancy levels at this World Cup have risen to unattainable levels in recent weeks.
After an outstanding second-round stage, disappointment was expressed at quarter-finals that contained a single ordinary game, if that.
This is our age now: we want football to resemble the abandon of a FIFA 14 game played by teenagers with no more than five minutes of bragging rights at stake. The real game isn’t like that.
These teams knew their business. Sometimes that isn’t greatly thrilling — but it is sport nonetheless.
There were 13 minutes gone when Holland forced the first chance of the game, and their only real crack at the target in the first half. It came from Wesley Sneijder, who curled the ball wide from 20 yards. — Daily Mail.
