On July 9, in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, the second semifinal match between the national teams of the Netherlands and Argentina took place. 60,000 spectators at the stadium witnessed a very nervous match.
In the second semi-final, the audience saw indoor football. The first half began slowly, at this pace the teams played the whole match. The main characteristic of the meeting can be called the struggle for the ball on each part of the field. The teams created a density of players from the center and back lines, which led to a very dull play in the attack of the attacking stars of both teams. Argentina's captain Lionel Messi has once again shown that he cannot help the national team at serious and significant games. The South American striker was simply turned off from the game by Bruno Martin Indy. The Dutchman personally took care of the Argentinean throughout the first half. The leaders of the Netherlands national team van Persie and Robben also did not shine with their performance. We can say that the teams had a minimum of approaches to the opponent's penalty area, ending with a dangerous shot. The attacks of both teams lacked sharpness.
The first half ended with an uninteresting but nervous draw without goals. The Argentines were a little more eager to try to attack.
In the second half of the meeting, the Dutch took the territorial initiative for themselves. The ball was bigger and better held by van Gaal's charges. However, this did not bear any fruit. Arjen Robben was still invisible, van Persie did not succeed, and Sneijder could not come up with anything creative in the Dutch offensive. Argentina's counterattacks are out of the question. South American footballers are noticeably addicted physically (which explained the advantage of the Europeans). Messi and the company absolutely did not succeed. There was a feeling that Argentina, without Lionel, simply did not know how to manage the ball in the front line.
90 minutes of the meeting ended with zeros on the scoreboard, which caused extra time. In the first overtime, the Dutch had a complete advantage in the territorial sense, but there were no dangerous moments. The second extra half also did not please the fans with goals. True, at the very end, Palacio could have scored the ball into the Netherlands goal, but the Argentine could not realize a dangerous exit to the Silissen goal.
The players played 120 minutes without scored goals, so the fate of a ticket to the final was decided in the sports football lottery - a series of penalty shootouts. The Europeans lost 2 - 4. The Dutch hit first. Of the four hits, only twice managed to send the ball into the goal, and twice Argentina Romero rescued. South American footballers were much more accurate. All four balls hit the target.
The final victory in the penalty shootout brings Argentina to the World Cup final. Now viewers will be able to see a repetition of the battle between Germany and Argentina (the final of the 1990 World Cup in Italy) in the final of the World Cup in Brazil. The Dutch players will be content with a third-place match in which the Europeans will face Brazil.
