FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa: Netherlands vs. Brazil - Match Analysis
Netherlands played with many Brazilian hearts as they went on to do the unthinkable. Some inspiration from talismanic midfielder Wesley Sneijder put the final touches on an outstanding performance that saw the five times World Champions pack their bags and make their way back home.
Brazil had a solid defense and lethal counter attacks, they seemed to be unstoppable in all of their previous games, and they appeared to be just as unstoppable in the first forty five minutes of their match.
When Robinho scored the first goal of the match on the tenth minute mark it only boosted the Brazilians hopes and put more emphasis on their dominance. At moments Brazil played some of the best football of the tournament during the opening half.
The Dutch seemed to be particularly poor initially and so were all their attempts. Arjen Robben refused to take shots with his stronger foot and continued to send balls high and wide into the stands repeatedly. Everything else that was thrown at the Brazilian back line was repelled brilliantly by the defenders.
Through out the duration of the World Cup, Dunga and his players have constantly been criticizing the match officials, at moments even making it appear like the world was against them, while continuing to harass the referees constantly.
The Dutch probably felt that they could expose this weakness in their favor. The constantly got on the Brazilians nerves by throwing some theatrics every time someone was taken down, made crunching tackles and this may not seem like much, but it seemed to be throwing the mighty Brazilians of guard and disrupting their game plan.
Eight minutes into the second half the Brazilians years of practice appeared to disappear into thin air, Sneijder floated in a cross in the penalty area, which Julio Cesar And Felipe Melo went up for, the ball came off Melo, hit the keeper and landed into the back of the Brazilian goal, that was the first own goal Brazil had scored in the ninety seven matches they have played in the World Cup finals.
That goal changed the course of the game completely and the Dutch appeared to be in the driving seat and looked like they could go home with the win. This own goal pressed some Brazilian nerves that no one thought could be reached.
The Dutch continued their theatrics throughout the match, especially Robben, who went down as though he was hit by a wall every time he was nudged. They also continued to throw in some dirty tackles every now and then and time wasting at this stage had become a must.
Sneijder headed home with Netherlands second in the middle of all this madness and five minutes later Melo was shown the red and given his marching orders.
The Brazilians never fully recovered after, Melo’s red card. Even Kaka who has on numerous occasions brought Brazil back into the game from the verges of defeat seemed to be misfiring every chance he got. He went on one of his signature runs on occasions but the end product was constantly lacking from Brazil.
The Dutch were the first team ever to take the game to the Brazilians and beat them. The twenty minutes from the start of the second half to Felipe Melo’s red card were the crucial moments when the match changed hands into Netherlands favor. Brazil tactically failed to come back from the going one goal down, this could largely be blamed to bad decision making by Dunga, who will have a lot of answering to do in these coming days.
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