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You are here: Home / Sports / World Cup Quarterfinals Afternoon Open Thread: Netherlands vs Argentina

World Cup Quarterfinals Afternoon Open Thread: Netherlands vs Argentina

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SportsMole:

A mouthwatering World Cup 2022 quarter-final which promises goals takes place at the Lusail Iconic Stadium on Friday evening, as the Netherlands do battle with Argentina.

Louis van Gaal’s men overcame the USA 3-1 to book their spot in the last eight, while the South American champions got the better of Australia 2-1 to keep their hopes of glory alive.

Cody Gakpo’s hot streak in front of goal may have come to an end against the USA, but Van Gaal’s effervescent wing-backs shouldered the goalscoring burden in Saturday’s last-16 battle, where the Yanks failed to build on a fast start and were punished for it…

Van Gaal did little to justify his claims that the Netherlands were not a “boring” side when the USA put them under the cosh in the opening exchanges, but Oranje sure did teach their American counterparts a lesson in ruthlessness to make the quarter-finals for the third time in a row.

Indeed, the Netherlands have now reached the last eight in four of their last five World Cup tournaments – the outlier being a last-16 elimination in 2006 – and they progressed to the semi-finals in both 2010 and 2014 before miserably failing to qualify for the Russia edition.

Not since 1994 have the 2010 runners-up failed to win a quarter-final match at the World Cup, and the Netherlands’ unbeaten streak in all competitions now stands at a whopping 19 matches, but something has to give when two attacking heavyweights battle for supremacy…

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45Comments

  16. 16.

    Kent

    Well, these quarterfinal matches are certainly living up to their billing.  I’m exhausted just watching.  I can’t imagine what it is like in a bar in Buenos Aires right now.

  18. 18.

    pat

    another penalty shoot-off coming up.. After Croatia won theirs against Brazil this morning. I feel sorry for the goal keepers.

  20. 20.

    JML

    Emi Martinez is a good keeper to have here.

    Total shithoussery from Messi on that PK, but it worked…

  26. 26.

    ALurkSupreme

    Penalty kicks are a horrible way to decide matches of this importance.   Fight me.

  28. 28.

    Alison Rose

    @ALurkSupreme: Horrible when your team is in it, fucking awesome when they’re not. But I think it’s fine overall because what it shows is that the teams were usually evenly matched overall and one couldn’t fully overcome the other. I’d rather a match end in PKs than like a 6-1 blow-out or something. Also, taking and keeping against PKs are extremely difficult skills to hone.

  30. 30.

    Kent

    @ALurkSupreme: Endless play until there is a result like they do in baseball would be worse.  Baseball players are mostly sitting or standing around so they can physically take a 4 or 5 hour game.  These guys would be wrecked for the next game if they played that long.

    I actually like how they do shoot outs in hockey better.  And some HS leagues do it that way too.  You get the ball at midfield and have 30 seconds to dribble down and shoot.  Plus the goalies can come off their lines.

    But this way has plenty of drama too.

  31. 31.

    LeftCoastYankee

    @ALurkSupreme:

    Replays used to be a thing in national Cup tournaments (i.e. play another full game in a couple of days), but with TV and international tournaments, it’s not feasible.

    Most of these players make way more money playing for their clubs than for their countries, so running them into the ground (more — 120 minutes is nuts) would not be a popular approach.

  32. 32.

    ALurkSupreme

    @Kent:  MLB has altered its extra-innings rules in an attempt to avoid overly long games.   It took some getting used to, but I’m coming around to it.

    As for the World Cup, I’m venting.  I don’t have a solution.  Clearly, no one does either, or it would have been implemented by now.

  33. 33.

    billcinsd

    @Kent: MLS did shootouts for several years. You start 35 yards out a dribble in, the GK can come off their line and you have like 10 seconds to score

  35. 35.

    Ken

    First the election ends, and all the political ads disappear. Then the Medicare enrollment period ends, and all the TV ads with Jimmie Walker and Joe Namath disappear. Soon the World Cup will be over, and what will fill our attention then?

  39. 39.

    PeteS

    I agree that replays are the best solution in theory but also that they are unworkable in practice, for a competition with a fixed, short timeline. Penalties don’t really have much to do with football but then some of the shenanigans we saw today don’t either, so that sort of balances out. I had no favorites going in but was cheering for Croatia by the end; and deeply torn between admiring Messi (the best player on the planet) and disliking Argentine cynicism, though I admit the Dutch were ready to face them down in combat. England v. France should be a cracker (so probably won’t be).

  40. 40.

    ian

    @ALurkSupreme: I’m not sure why you would prefer having people fight you to using penalty kicks.  There are a lot of soccer games you are going to have to go officiate/fight in.

    Also, you will get older.  The players will be replaced by younger ones.

    This strategy of fighting you instead of PKs seems dangerous.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @ALurkSupreme:

    Football used to have the “golden goal” (i.e., sudden-death extra time) around the turn of the millennium, but that lasted only a few years. Then they reverted to the current method.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    I liked NCAA soccer in part due to their use of the golden goal. So of course, they dropped it this year. It does keep regular season matches short, as ties seem absurdly common in college soccer, and College Cups are frequently settled with shootouts.

    The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel during a virtual meeting Wednesday approved changes to overtime rules in men’s and women’s soccer for both the regular season and the postseason, effective for the 2022 season.

    For the regular season, overtime has been eliminated, meaning if a game is tied after the regulation 90 minutes, it will end in a tie. Previously, teams played two 10-minute overtime periods in a sudden-victory (golden goal) format, and if neither team scored, the game ended in a tie.

    In conference tournaments and NCAA postseason games, the sudden-victory component has been eliminated, and teams will play two 10-minute overtime periods instead. Also, when a substitution is made by the winning team in the last five minutes of the second overtime, the game clock will stop.

    If the game remains tied, a penalty-kick shootout will be held to determine the winner.

    ETA 110 minutes of soccer is a huge amount of time on the field, and given packed schedules I understand why college coaches would wish to ditch overtime entirely, before playoffs and the tournament.

  45. 45.

    YY_Sima Qian

    So, I decided to go to bed after Messi scored the penalty at 72 min, thinking the Dutch were done. They looked lackadaisical & discombobulated, & I was tired from staying up all night watching the matches. Now I wake up to see Argentina winning in penalty shootout?!!! What drama in both matches!

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