World Cup, Brazil 2014: Day 28 Open Thread. Argentina vs Netherlands

Well then. yesterday's game was strange wasn't it. 7-1 is all sorts of nonsense for any team in a World Cup semi final. Yes they didn't have Neymar or Silva, but still, a collapse like that is pretty pretty shocking. Brazil have often seemed like a team on the verge of a nervous breakdown during this tournament, the appealing of Silva's suspension and calls for that Colombian who kneed Neymar to be punished just seemed like another example of a team that wasn't  really focused right, that wasn't set up to deal with the pressure.  They started out ok, but a bit of sloppy defending was their initial downfall, and when the Germans got their 2nd it was a full on meltdown to let it get to 5-0.  After a bit of time to sort themselves out at half time they came out looking good but Neuer blocked their efforts and there was no discipline, no reservoir of self belief to draw from and so they withered again. 7-1. woof.

I'm pretty confident in saying that won't happen again today no matter which team might go ahead. Argentina vs Netherlands. That 5-1 thrashing of Spain aside, neither side has really looked all that good so far, but here they are, they've just about done what needs to be done to get this far. This has got cagey and occasionally ill tempered with the occasional moment of genius to break things down written all over it, just a question of who's going to be the genius. Robben vs Messi is the obvious angle, but both sides have plenty of other candidates to do the something special that will probably be needed.

I'm taking off for a few days so that's about as much preview as you're going to get for this one.