They don't. A very stupid system.

It is, man, and stupid, rule really. Why there was a need to change it, I do not know. It should be group stages, maybe, maybe the round of 16, and then a reset for the quarterfinals.

Exactly. Really wanted to see Silva play all matches, particularly against Germany. And to think his first yellow, although not unfair, was due to a brain dead moment from the Brazil defense, where he had to move in with a strong tackle. I can only hope Dante is not played in the semifinal. Walking liability.

And besides, the German players will figure him out easy, particularly the Bayern ones.

Zapata was so awful in this game.

Well, this was an entirely different Brazil from the one against Chile. Honestly was expecting Colombia to walk. It was a good game. The semi-final against Germany will be a classic. Too bad about Silva, and possibly Neymar?

Yeah, the world cup is over for Neymar..according to this: http://football-italia.net/51613/world-cup-over-neymar

Neymar out of World Cup. So without him and Silva, Germany should own them.

You would think so, I still think Brazil will win it. Germany are the biggest chokers in International football of late though, even Holland and Argentina tend to blow it late too.

So let's see how good Costa Rica really are. England, Greece and Italy were meant to be tough opponents, turns out all 3 were bad. Beating Greece on penalties is no impressive feat.

At this point I'm leaning either towards Holland or Brazil. The other sides have been painfully underwhelming

With Neymar & Thiago Silva out I can't see anything but a Germany win in the SF.

Yup. Their two best players, no doubt.

So, I didn't actually imagine it

Is that a grasshopper?

thats a huge mother...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGL0Kn2QPdE

Already looking frantic. Something tells me this is going to be a great game

Wilmots should play Lukaku and Mertens for Origi and Mirallas.

I actually fell asleep during that game.

Very boring for the most part. Argentina are like Spain 2010 with all the dull 1-0's they're piling up.

These games have been starting very strong but then get rather dull in the second half.

Just like Germany-France. Is it because of the exhaustion and conditions or what? Because there's obviously a pattern.

Early goals in both games probably didn't help either.

Apparently yellow cards do get wiped after the QF stage, so only a red in the SF will make you miss the Final. Fair play FIFA, that's spot on.

WTF just happened!? How did it not go in!?

Costa Rica are probably destined to win the entire thing with the way things are going for them

This is epic drama!

Thank god!

Great decision from van Gaal to bring Krul on. Went the right way for all 5 penalties.

Holland are easily the most entertaining team left, hope they finally win it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOFwSiBNwAE

But on the other hand, Krul was being totally out of line. Who knows what he was telling the Costarican shooters, but it sure wasn't nice and fair.

Btw. is Krul a penalty specialist like Holland used to have in general or did he only study the Costaricans and their way of shooting?

Agreed.

Costa Rica though have seriously been impressive throughout the tournament. I like their coach as well

what i heard was 2 out of 20 saves was his epl record. i believe it was more of a psychological move which worked well.

yeah i heard the same. tbh i dont get sucked into the whole hype and praises of penalties. it really is 50-50. thats a fact.

Agreed. I'm sure Van Gaal thought it would throw them off, bringing the "penalty specialist" on at the last moment because he will do the job

I think it was probably more to do with throwing off their preparation. Some goalies favour diving a certain way, or move early, etc. these are things players will study. They wouldn't have done any kind of preperation on Krul. It was definitely all psychological IMO.

I thought it was pretty sh*t tbh. He was brought on to put them off - LVG had the right to make that sub, but Krul's conduct I found totally unsporting.

And it was a total insult to Cilleson.

Finally!

Finally what?

Well finally someone realized Krul showed an incredible amount of unsporting behavior.

I wouldn't call it unsporting behaviour. Many keepers do the same thing to try to get into the players' heads. Most of the time it doesn't work and they end up looking like idiots, on other rare occasions it "works". And I put that in "" because it usually has nothing to do with the keeper acting like an idiot, it all depends on the penalty taker and what frame of mind he's in, if he's confident of scoring there's no way a little trash talk will effect him.

Some have admired what he did, I'm not one of them.

Didn't take Prandelli long to find a new gig!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28142969

Really? So you are one of those who think Dudek behaved also "normal" and only tried get into the players?

I have to disagree. Show me a comparable example (on a high stage like the WC quarterfinal) to Krul's almost threatening trash talk? I think you'll find up very few to none. This wasn't just a little, this was a rarely seen show.

I don't think Dudek behaved poorly against us at all (maybe I'm not remembering), but Krul was another level. I'm with Fillipo that it was way too much. Goalies shouldn't be allowed out of the 6 yard box to come and talk to the player IMO.

+1

Opinion was mixed on Twitter. Half admired it saying it was great mind games, while a smaller amount such as myself thought it frankly incredibly poor conduct and couldn't believe the ref didn't intervene.

I personally don't think that you can compare the 2

What Dudek did throws the taker off more than a little close up trash talk, but was all within the rules of the game.

As I said before, I don't think what Krul did was all that bad, did I think that he acted like a total @sshole? Yes and I would have laughed had the Costa Rica players scored their penalties and made him look like an even bigger @sshole. But really their misses imo had nothing to do with him coming up in their faces.

I think it made a difference. Against Greece the same shooters made different selections and were generally more confident.

Mentioning Dudek wasn't a comparison, I just know how many people said he behaved without sportsmanship.

I don't think you can really compare how a team does in one shoot out vs another one. It's a completely different game, a completely different outset that the players have to wrap their minds around. I think I heard the commentator say before the shootout took place that no team had managed to win 2 consecutive games with a shootout in the World Cup, ever.

Well, as annoying as it was, what Dudek did imo wasn't un-sportsmanship

I think this is very much the Germans year.