*Official* Netherlands vs Brazil (Quarter-Final One)

[Samuel_Vimes]

Kick-off Friday 2 July, 16.00 (local, 14.00 UTC) at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth (weather: fair, 25 degrees)
Referee: Yuichi Nishimura (Japan)

[Samuel_Vimes]

Despite being a horribly defensive outfit...

[Lillian Thomson]

My Great Great Grandfather was Dutch. Not overly significant admittedly but there you have it,

[pasag]

This thread sponsored by:

[Xuhaib]

Brazil to win after xtra time 2-1.

[Kweek]

haha

[Johnners]

stickied

Can't see anyway Netherlands can win this tbh unless it gets down to penalties.

[Kweek]

have you seen brazil play football?

Maicon and Baston will be utterly hopeless against quality wingers (Elia, Robben)

The midfield of Brazil is their weakness, way to slow! van Bommel, De Jong and Sneijder will find a lot of space there.

Problem with The Netherlands is that we haven't played a decent team yet that will let us attack, so far we've played 4 teams (maybe not Cameroon) that basically dug themselves in and always had 9 man behind the ball.

put 25 euro on Holland winning via Unibet...odds are 4.09 I think, would make me a solid 100 euro's

[Johnners]

Admire your optimism, but honestly can't see it happening. No the Dutch haven't had anyone really attack them, but I'd be more worried about Fabiano/Robinho/Kaka running at the dutch defence than Van Persie/Robben/Kuyt. De Jong/Van Bommell can't mop up everything

[Kweek]

we'll see

if we get to 60% of the Euro 08 group games, we'll beat Brazil.

[R_D]

I like both teams.... hopefully the team that plays good brand of football.. wins.
I can see this going into extra time as both teams are pretty good defensively.

[vcs]

Both teams have been dull as ditchwater to watch (even though Brazil have scored plenty of goals). Hope the Dutch finally get over their tendency to lose to the first decent team they play as in previous major tournaments.

[GingerFurball]

Brazil are only dull if you're expecting them to play as a hybrid of the 1970 and 1982 teams.

They're extremely solid defensively and excellent to watch going forward on the counter attack. As far as brilliance in attack goes, they're still the team to beat, most of their goals so far at the World Cup have been out of the top drawer as far as attacking brilliance goes, either individually (Maicon, Ramires' run to set up Robinho vs Chile), or collectively (Elano vs North Korea, Luis Fabiano vs Chile).

[Kweek]

Brazil are only dull if you're expecting them to play as a hybrid of the 1970 and 1982 teams.

They're extremely solid defensively and excellent to watch going forward on the counter attack. As far as brilliance in attack goes, they're still the team to beat, most of their goals so far at the World Cup have been out of the top drawer as far as attacking brilliance goes, either individually (Maicon, Ramires' run to set up Robinho vs Chile), or collectively (Elano vs North Korea, Luis Fabiano vs Chile).

same goes for the Netherlands really...only dull if you expect them to play as they did @ euro08, and we all know how well that ended.

The Dutch don't make big mistakes and generally play a solid and pacing game.

[PhoenixFire]

Admire your optimism, but honestly can't see it happening. No the Dutch haven't had anyone really attack them, but I'd be more worried about Fabiano/Robinho/Kaka running at the dutch defence than Van Persie/Robben/Kuyt. De Jong/Van Bommell can't mop up everything

I wouldn't be really that worried about Kaka, he's done sweet FA so far.